Ghost of Razgriz
by aceofSpades44
Summary: She'd served with distinction, done what need to be done to achieve peace. She sank beneath the waves for her caused, her eternal slumber well earned. But now the world called out to her once again. She was needed, and she would answer. [Reposted from Spacebattles]
1. Chapter 1 : The Revenant Carrier

Dark.

That was the only thought going through her mind as she floated through and endless sea of _dark._ She didn't know where she was, didn't know what she was floating through. It was neither cold nor warm, it just seemed to match her own temperature perfectly until it felt like there was no difference between her and the void. There was no sensation of the sea against her hull, nor the sounds of waves breaking against her bow. She felt nothing, heard nothing, and saw nothing.

Most things would have panicked at a situation like this. Not her. She'd earned her rest. She'd earned it by fighting to save her country from itself, to save it from a lie that threatened to tear not only it but the world apart. She'd earned it by seeing her planes off safely as she sank, holding it together just long enough for them to depart on their final mission to strike the true enemy at their heart. Most others would have blown their own magazines for a _chance_ to do what she'd done.

She was content. She'd done her duty, gone beyond it even, and died to see it fulfilled. And she knew it had. There was no doubt. Wherever those four pilots went, history bent to their will. They'd succeeded, she knew.

All she had to do know was rest.

But she couldn't. Something called to her. A voice. A plea. Something needed her. Some _one_ needed her!

Her reactors spun up. Her turbines began to roar. Her catapults shuddered in anticipation.

OFS _Kestrel_ was needed, and she would answer the call. 

-[]-[]-[]-

She found herself on a rather calm sea, the deep blue waters making waves barely high enough to reach her knees. A warm tropical breeze blew through her hair and ruffled the hem of her skirt. The bright rays of the sun nearly blinded her as they beat down on her skin-.

Wait a tic.

Knees? Hair? Skin? _EYES?!_

The once carrier looked down at herself, and wow was _that_ ever a strange thought to her, and found herself staring at something that she _really_ wasn't expecting on seeing today. She had legs. Covered in some weird navy gray approximation of shoes that stood _on water_ and a set of black thigh high socks that ended just below the hem of a black-and-red pleated skirt. Wrapped around her new torso, she found an immaculately pressed Navy Dress Uniform the colors of which matched those of her skirt. The rank insignias on her shoulders denoted the rank of Captain. Her blond hair was shoulder length and whatever style she wore it in was summarily ruined by the ocean winds blowing it every which way but down.

On her back sat most of her superstructure and aviation facilities. Her radar was scanning the skies, keeping an eye out for threats. Her elevators were ready and waiting to bring her fighters up to her flight deck. Speaking of, it seemed that the business end of her operations had been split into two pieces. On the right side was the forward part of her flight deck, which held space for her two forward catapults and jet blast deflectors. The entire assembly was attached to a mechanical arm that attached it to the rest of her superstructure. A single trigger assembly allowed her to grab it and raise the small platform up to shoulder height. As she did so, the catapults began steaming as they waited to launch her planes into the air.

On her left side, acting like an angular tower shield was the rest of her flight deck. There was no handle for her to grab to help raise it. Instead, the much more robust mechanical arm began to whir as the massive plate raised itself into position near her shoulder. At the end of the angled flight deck were two more catapults for when she absolutely, _positively_ needed to get all her planes up as soon as possible. Behind them she saw three arrestor wires lashed across her deck waiting to bring her flyers home. Hanging off the sides of the flight deck were four launchers for Sea Sparrow Missiles and four Phalanx 20mm CIWS guns.

She turned her attention back to her superstructure, and to the elevators that led to her hangar that hung around her hips. Two on the left and two on the right. Obviously, she was supposed to receive her planes from these, grab them and place them on her catapults to ready them for launch. Now it made sense as to why her rear flight deck was controlled by a robotic setup. It freed up her arms to launch her fighters.

Speaking of, she ran a quick inventory of fighters and personnel...okay so there were little people living inside her, good to know...and the results were...poor to say the least. She had four planes in her hangar. Four. Total. Out of a maximum capacity of 90. And they were F-14A Tomcats. Good for air patrols, pretty well crap at anything else.

That was pretty much the air wing she'd been packing after she'd essentially gone rogue. It was highly disappointing but not entirely unworkable. She'd need to play it smart going forward.

And for that she needed intel.

She was alone, that was for sure, and floating not to far off from a small island if her radar scope was to be believed. She had no idea as to where she was specifically though, and it was doubtful that the island had any port facilities that could accommodate a carrier of her stature. Or any ship bigger than a canoe for that matter. Even then one little island wasn't enough for her to get her bearings anyway. Luckily, she had something that could give her exact position to within ten meters. Good ol' GPS. And there _was_ GPS out here, she could pick up the transmissions from the satellites.

Too bad the next few seconds only left her disappointed rather than informed. Whatever amount of time had passed since her sinking and subsequent...rebirth for lack of a better term, it had definitely affected the transmission protocols for GPS satellites. Her own protocols were _wildly_ out of date, with barely any of them matching up. Which meant that using her GPS to figure out he location was not much of an option anymore.

So much for that plan.

"Old fashioned way it is then." She muttered to herself. She blinked, surprised at her own voice and how... _deep_ it was.

Shaking off that thought she lowered one of her elevators, preparing to launch her aircraft one at a time. If there was one blessing to the Tomcat fighters she had on hand it was their powerful-as-all-hell radars, one of the best ever mounted on a fighter. It would extend her detection range much further out than what she would have on her own. Plus, she'd have at least one combat air patrol up, maybe two if she split her air wing. A carrier without planes in the air was a vulnerable carrier.

The first plane came up on her elevator as the other three began to descend. She reached down and gingerly took the tiny F-14 in her hand and brought it up to her face. At this size, it looked like what one would expect a child to be playing with. She knew better. This was a very real Tomcat, just one that was miniaturized. And it was black. Solid phantom black with red wingtips. Painted on either side of the nose just below the cockpit canopy in white, flowing cursive writing were the words "Razgriz One - Blaze".

For a moment she was conflicted. These were the pilots that she'd launched as her final act. The pilots that, above all else, she _had_ to throw off her decks to get them to their target. It hurt to know that they were back with her, they deserve a carrier just as accomplished as they were. And she just wasn't...not really.

On the other hand, she was happy to have them back. There was something about the tiny black planes that gave her reassurance. They made her feel safe. It was like an unspoken promise was painted onto the wings of the tiny fighters. 'No matter what comes your way, we'll have your back'.

As of now though, she really didn't have the opportunity to question just _how_ her pilots had found their way home. She just needed to get them into the air. They were useless just sitting on her decks. She grabbed the handle of her forward flight deck and raised it to a level position in front of her. The catapults steaming as they built up pressure, she slotted the tiny plane into position. The minute her hand left the craft its wings folder outward, its tiny control surfaces angling as the pilot inside completed the last of its pre-flight checks. As its engines spun up with a high pitched whine her jet blast deflectors deployed, keeping the rest of her flight deck safe from its jet wash.

She sighted up the horizon as her catapult reached its maximum launch pressure. Her eyes traced the approximate path the pilot would take as he took off. The seas were calm, and she was more stable than during a lot of launches she'd had to make. This would be simple.

"Razgriz One...LAUNCH!" She barked, the plane suddenly firing off the end of her flight deck. It dipped below the top of her deck as the pilot slammed the throttles forward. It soon built up enough airspeed to climb up and away, somehow growing two sizes as it pulled up into a steep climb.

She had no time to waste tracking the plane as it pulled up to its holding altitude. She had other planes to launch.

The others went up in order. Razgriz Two - Edge went up after her flight lead, the two pairing off as the loyal wingman watched the squadron leader's tail. Razgriz Three - Swordsman followed next and was quickly followed by Razgriz Four - Archer. The four planes formed up into a V-formation, tracing a lazy circle in the air above her. Already she could see further than before with the fighter's radars feeding information to her CIC. Not that if gave her much of anything of use immediately. She'd have to range her fighters out to see if there was anything of note. That said she couldn't send them out too far lest she leave herself undefended in case she was attacked. Not that she thought she was in any danger. Then again, she remembers thinking the same thing before that sub did her in via anti-ship missile.

So she decided to arrange her fighters in such a way that they could range out in a circular pattern away from her, but which left them close enough to respond within five minutes at cruise. Less than half that going full afterburner. She also split the fighters in teams of two to try and maximize the amount of ground she covered.

The first few orbits of her air wing gave her a substantial piece of information. That being that the tiny island she'd 'woken up' near to was apparently the only damn piece of real-estate in the general vicinity. Everything else was pure open ocean. She'd need to move if she was gonna figure out exactly where she was. Well that seemed easy enough. All she had to do was sail East to get to the coast of Osea, after all she'd been sunk in the northeastern chunk of the Ceres Ocean. Good news was that her compass still worked even without her GPS.

So she set course eastward, her fighters keeping their defensive-recon pattern as she cruised at a lazy 17 knots. She'd make it back home alright, she just needed to take it slow. It was actually rather nice to sail again. The small waves breaking against her bow as she cut through the waves, the breeze washing over her decks. It was a sensation any ship should enjoy, and it was something that she realized she'd been missing in that state of limbo she'd been trapped in.

She been steaming for all of half an hour when Razgriz 3 started picking up surface contacts on radar to the northeast. They weren't islands, definitely ships though. She had no idea what kind of vessels they were just from a radar return, so she vectored Razgriz 3 and 4 to take a closer look. Hopefully they'd be able to identify what they were.

As the two planes came closer and closer to the unidentified contacts, more and more began showing up. New of contacts sailed on the sea and danced in the sky. No not danced, _brawled._ Slow moving aircraft tangled with each other in a desperate dogfight, knocking their opponents out of the sky by the dozens. On the sea, small battle-groups clashed at ranges most nay captains would find absurd, slugging it out at naval gun range.

All the ships looked like Kestrel did. Humanoid, but distinctly comprised of hulls, screws, guns and superstructures. But some only fit that description in the loosest sense, looking like something straight out of a horror story. They looked like someone had taken a ship, turned it inside out and then went right back around and stuffed all their guts back in. Each of their decks was clad in hauntingly black steel, which itself looked half-rotted and rusted but never lost that color. Large gaping maws made a mockery of hydrodynamics, the white teeth giving a sharp contrast to the black hulls. Their stacks belched smoke just as black as their paint schemes which seemed to choke the very air above them.

Engaging them was another set of ship...women. Shipwomen. That's what she was going to call them. Shipwomen.

...well it makes sense!

Anyway, the other group of ship women looked decidedly more normal...well not quite normal but less...nightmarish.

Kestrel rubbed at her temples. This whole 'ships having a human body' thing was going to take some getting used to.

The fact that she was bracing herself for more weirdness was already worrying...

Okay, steer your mind back on track girl. You've got a job to do!

She once again focused on the other, less horrifying group of shipwomen. They looked old but young at the same time. Old because what weapons she could see looked like relics born of an era that had ended nearly 80 years ago. Cannons and torpedoes replaced CIWS and Missiles. Heavily armored battleships duked it out on the waves, their cannon blasts cratering the water as they fired salvo after salvo. Destroyers weaved between shell splashed hoping to get firing angles to launch wave after wave of torpedoes at the enemy.

And they were losing.

Outnumbered over two to one, the shipwomen were slowly being encircled by the Nightmare Fleet. The two carriers at the center of their formation were flinging planes into the air as fast as they could load and draw their...bows? Okay then...that's apparently how _that_ worked. No matter how many they sent up, the enemy fliers outnumbered theirs, and they would eventually be completely overwhelmed.

Kestrel couldn't really stand by and watch as an entire fleet was annihilated, especially if it was by some crazy perversion of naval engineering.

...Hey. Those ships hadn't noticed Razgriz 3 and 4 yet had they? 

-[]-[]-[]-

Akagi had long since stopped trying to follow the tenets of a proper carrier launch. Just draw and shoot, draw and shoot, and shoot. Get your planes in the air as fast as you can and try to match the swarm the Abyssals were fielding. That was all that mattered aside from throwing as much anti-aircraft fire up at the enemy. Get your planes in the air, engage the Abyssal fliers, keep the fleet safe.

The whole operation had gone pear-shaped in a heartbeat. They'd scrambled all the kanmusu stationed at Yokosuka after Iku had sent back images of a massive Abyssal fleet steaming north toward the home islands. Other fleets attached to JMSDF were on their way, but the Yokosuka fleet was the first one meet the enemy in open combat.

And the difference in numbers had made itself readily apparent.

Akagi wheeled her rudders full to starboard, barely dodging an Abyssal Dive Bomber as it tried to score a hit, the bomb splashing into the water near her port bow. Another divebomber was shredded by her anti-air guns before it could pull over into its dive.

"Agh! Come on! There's no end to these things!" Shouted Zuikaku as she loosed another flight of planes. Akagi wanted to say something to the other carrier but decided against it. She need to concentrate on directing her fighters if she wanted any chance of breaking through the Abyssal air assault.

A formation of three enemy torpedo bombers flew in from the left, heading straight for the two carriers. Akagi called out a warning to Zuikaku and the two began turning towards the enemy planes all the while blasting AA fire in their direction to try and keep them from dropping their torpedoes. One plane went down before it could release its payload, but the other two managed to get their fish in the water. Akagi and Zuikaka were already bow-on to the planes and their torpedoes streaked harmlessly past.

Just then a formation of dive-bombers managed to break through the two carrier's air defense screen and dove for them, a good fifteen planes in all. The two carriers wheeled their guns around towards the formation and started firing just a little too late as the bomber tipped over into their steep dives. Akagi turned hard left rudder, trying to shake off the bomber's aim. Four planes went barreling into the drink trailing fire and smoke. The rest of the planes managed to drop their bombs.

Most were misses, a good eight splashes bracketing them in as they weaved. But three managed to hit. Akagi screamed as one of the bombs hit her aft flight deck, punching through the wood and down multiple decks before detonating in her engine room. Her left leg was blown off and the other one left mangled. She collapsed onto the water as she began leaking vital fuel and oil into the sea. Zuikaku took two bombs, one to her fire directors blinding the poor girl as the other smashed up her flight deck, essentially making it impossible for her to launch any planes.

But while Zuikaku was still mobile if largely blind and unable to launch planes, Akagi was dead in the water. Her engines were shot to hell and back and she was taking on water. Her fuel lines were ruptured and the planes she had in the sky couldn't land with the huge hole in her deck. She still had her guns and fire directors operational, but for the most part she was a sitting duck for the next wave of abyssal planes.

She saw them, eight more dive bombers heading straight for her. Zuikaku tried to fire back, but without proper sight and having sailed further from Akagi she couldn't draw an accurate bead on them. Akagi let her guns fire away, desperate to hit them before they could turn into their dives. They drew closer, almost laughing in the face of her anti-aircraft fire. She could see the bombs slung under their wings, looing terrifyingly large.

This was it. This is how she'd die. To carrier-launched dive bombers.

She lowered her gaze as she prepared to face the bomb's fury.

She'd fought to the end though. It would be a good death.

Her head jerked back up when she heard the sound o explosions above her. What had once been Abyssal planes had been reduced to so much shrapnel. She heard the telltale mounting roar of jet engines long before she caught sight of the fighters. Two solid black F-14 Tomcats, each looking way too small to be the full-sized aircraft, streaked by overhead. They came over low and fast, their wings angled as far back as they would go, their engines burning at full afterburner as they climbed back up into the fight. The stricken carrier jumped as she heard the crack of a sonic boom pass over her decks.

The fighters split up, one heading straight towards the sky while the other rolled over the top of his climb to get onto the tail of two Abyssal fighters. A quick burst from the Tomcat's nose-mounted cannon shredded the fighters, leaving them to tumble into the sea. The first fighter continued his climb upwards before he leveled out and turned back into the fight. A missile dropped away from the F-14 and slammed into an abyssal dive bomber as it tried to get a bead on Nagato.

Akagi watched, nearly awe struck, as the two fighters made mince-meat out of the Abyssals that had been hounding the Yokousuka fleet for the past half-hour. With their high-powered after-burning engines, the Tomcats could entirely dictate the fight with guns and missiles. They owned the skies and they made the Abyssals pay for even thinking of entering their domain. Now with their formations in disarray, Akagi and Suikaku's remaining fighters had the breathing room they needed to start turning the tide.

 _"This is OFS Kestrel to unidentified surface vessels..."_ A new voice suddenly crackled over Akagi's radio in English as two more F-14s came streaking in from the southwest.  
 _  
"... looks like you girls could use a hand."_


	2. Chapter 2 : Four Black Wings

Kestrel smiled.

That was an odd sensation, feeling muscles tugging at ones lips. Pleasant, but odd. That was another thing that she was going to have to get used to.

Her first attack on the enemy fighters had been extremely effective. In the span of a few seconds, Razgriz 3 and 4 had downed a combined total of eleven enemy planes.  
 _  
Eleven!_

Sure the two pilots were aces with kill scores that would make even other accomplished pilots jealous, but getting a kill score like that in such a short span of time was astounding. The enemy didn't know what had hit them. Their planes were knocked wildly out of formations, confusion setting in just as the other two members of Razgriz team came streaking into the attack. Enemy planes began dropping like flies as the four Tomcats opened up a clear pocket of airspace above the two friendly carriers. It gave the friendly aircraft the breathing room they needed to reform into effective air-defense groups.

It came at a bit of a cost to Kestrel's planes though. They'd burned through a massive amount of ammunition in a short amount of time, and they would need to return to the carrier to rearm. Whats more is that the enemy still outnumbered the defenders nearly two to one in the air, even with their losses to the Razgriz team, and they were beginning to reorganize.

Not to mention the enemy surface vessels that were presently closing in around the beleaguered fleet. Even with all their skill, her planes wouldn't have enough ammo to make a difference on either front. Not to mention that the F-14A's didn't really have a whole lot of effective weapons in the Anti-ship role.

She'd need to concentrate on the air war.

 _"OFS Kestrel, this is JMSDF Battleship Nagato of the Yokosuka Response Fleet."_ Oh yeah, there were other ships on the ocean today. _"We appreciate the assist. The enemy have us surrounded and we're outnumbered in the air. Think you can continue providing air cover?"  
_  
"Affirmative Nagato. I've got you covered." Kestrel reported as Blaze shot down another enemy flier. "You have any secure channels for me to use? I'd rather not be broadcasting to you on an open channel."

 _"Understood. Switch to frequency one-zero-seven."  
_  
Kestrel did so, tuning her radios into the right military channel. "OFS Kestrel to Nagato, do you copy?"

 _"I-."_ There was the sound of a heavy thud on the other end. A thud that sounded like the muffled boom of an explosion. _"I read you Kestrel, loud and clear."_ For being under fire, Nagato seemed to be holding together pretty well.

Kestrel nodded to herself. She could work with that. The name "Abyssal" to describe the enemy ships interested her, but for the moment she had to focus on providing cover. She'd already given the friendly planes enough breathing room to work with, and they were starting to form a protective screen over the Yokosuka Fleet. These _Abyssals_ had fallen back to provide their own air cover for their ships assaulting the defenders. _If_ Kestrel's planes were relaying the info right, the allied fleet had managed to launch a few flights of what looked like torpedo bombers.

God those carriers needed an upgrade to their air wing...

Regardless, that still gave her options.

And she also had a target. Two battleships, looking really old with their five dual turrets, sat at the middle of a protective screen of three cruisers and five destroyers as they pushed towards the center of the Yokosuka fleet and their stricken carriers. The defneders didn't have any nits in the area that she could see that would be able to respond in time to intercept them. If she could sink those two battleships she'd eliminate the immediate threat to the carriers _and_ sink two of the heaviest combatants. Even if it wouldn't necessarily be enough to turn the tide of the battle in the Yokosuka fleet's favor, it would still deal a huge blow to the Abyssal fleet. Combined with their losses in the air, it might be enough for them to call off the attack.

"Nagato," Kestrel began. "My pilots report that you have torpedo bombers in the air. That true?"

 _"Affirmative Kestrel, but with all the enemy fliers they can't get close to the Abyssal ships."_ Nagato reported. _"Carriers Zuikaku and Akagi are heavily damaged and cannot launch or recover planes so we only have what's in the air at the moment."_

"Understood, are Zuikaku and Akagi the commanders for the bombers?"

 _"Yes."  
_  
"Mind if I speak to them?"

Nagato to didn't answer, instead a new voice crackled in over the radio. _"This is Zuikaku."_ The voice sounded pained, mumbling her words like she couldn't move her mouth properly. _"You Kestrel?"_

"Yeah, this is Kestrel." She replied. "I understand you have bombers in the air?"

 _"A few torpedo planes but I can't do much with them with all those enemy planes in the air around their ships. They'd be shot down in a heartbeat if I tried anything."_ Zuikaku reported, though it took Kestrel a few moments to parse through all the mumbling.

"Right, Nagato filled me in." Kestrel went over the plan in her head one more time. "Listen Zuikaku, you and Akagi think you could send them at a target for me? I'll have my fighters sweep the skies for them."

There was a pause on the other end. Maybe Zuikaku conversing with Akagi? _"Zuikaku to Kestrel, who's the unlucky lady?"_

"There's a battle-group of ten ships steaming towards you from the southwest. We take out the two battleships in the center we can deal them a serious blow."

 _"Got it, waiting for your go."_

Kestrel wasted no time. She vectored Razgriz team towards the Abyssal ships, their remaining missiles hot as the friendly torpedo bombers began forming up into attack patterns. Missiles crossed the distance between the Tomcats and the planes turning to meet them in the blink of an eye. Wreckage fell from the sky as plane after plane was knocked down, Razgriz 3 and 4 reported bingo missiles but continued charging at full afterburner towards the enemy planes. The ships below erupted into anti-aircraft fire as the Tomcats approached, but it was ineffectual against such fast moving targets. The crews must not be experienced in handling aircraft that could break the sound barrier.

Battle was joined, four Tomcats meeting a pack of twenty enemy aircraft. Nothing about that matchup was fair.

They should 'a sent more.

The Four Wings of Sand Island found themselves in the middle of a massive furball, two of their number reduced to guns-only aerial combat. The two planes that still had missiles on the racks had trouble finding good firing angles with so many targets. But when your guns can chew through the enemy fighters like they were made of wet tissue paper it didn't really matter. Quick bursts from 20mm vulcan cannons shredded the enemy planes, sending them crashing to the sea in fireball after fireball. The black jets would accelerate away before the enemy could retaliate, their bullets dropping off before they could score hits.

But there were so _many_ of them! Already after so many passes and successful kills, Kestrel had barely made a dent in their numbers while her planes were running on empty when it came to ammo. She wouldn't have enough of the enemy planes cleared away before the attack could commence, and recalling her fighters for resupply would give the Abyssals more than enough time to reinforce their losses. Meanwhile those two battleships would be getting ever closed to the center of the Yokosuka fleet.

"Kestrel to Zuikaku." She radioed. "My planes are reaching Winchester on weapons. I won't be able to clear the skies completely but I've thinned them out. Think you and Akagi can divert fighters to mop them up?"

There was a frustrated grumble on the other end. _"That's going to be tight. Even if we did manage to clear the skies for the bombers we'll take too many losses to keep our defense screen up."  
_  
Kestrel sighed. She _had_ to take those battleships out soon, or they'd likely be in range to hit the carriers and whatever other ships that were crazy enough to wander into range. But with the limited number of aircraft she was working with she had her hands tied. She couldn't have Razgriz team disengage, not now. "Roger that Zuikaku, I'll keep fighters on station. Even if they can't shoot I can still have them buzz the enemy and box them in for your aircraft. Hopefully that'll limit your casualties."

 _"Copy."  
_  
So the Razgriz team dove into the fray once again, largely reduced to close-in gun runs by this point. Razgriz 1 and 2 had disengaged to fire their missiles into the swirling mass of enemy fighters while Kestrel had been on the horn with Zuikaku and now their weapons situation was just as perilous as the other half of the team. Their cannons buzzed, 20mm shells slicing into the enemy planes and sending them tumbling.

The Yokosuka fliers came buzzing in as fast as their little prop engines could push them, guns blazing as they split off to engage their Abyssal counterparts. All told the Abyssals still outnumbered them, but that was quickly changing. The allied fighters had the initiative thanks to Kestrels efforts, and Akagi and Zuikaku made sure to have their planes capitalize on that.

A fact that became readily apparent was that the planes flown by the Yokosuka pilots could completely out-turn their opponents. Kestrel, seeing through the eyes of Razgriz 3 as he flew past, watched as a green colored, straight-winged fighter got into a turning fight with a triangular Abyssal plane. In just two revolutions the green fighter went from chased to chaser, swinging around to get on the Abyssal's tail. The enemy fighter didn't stand a chance.

Lumbering in behind the fighters, skimming just above the waves, were about twenty torpedo bombers arranged into three seperate flights. Zuikaku and Akagi's torpedo bombers. Kestrel instructed the Razgriz team to keep the enemy fighters off the bomber's tails by whichever means necessary. Those bombers _needed_ to sink the battleships if they wanted a shot at turning this fight around. So the four Tomcats focused their attacks and remaining ammo on keeping the Abyssals from making attack runs on the bombers. Every time an Abyssal tried to dive on them, Razgriz team sent them crashing into the sea.

The torpedo bombers split off. Three flights heading in different directions to split enemy anti-aircraft fire as they lined up their attack runs. Kestrel soon found herself chewing on her thumb as they banked over to line up their shots. Enemy AA defenses blazed, throwing as much lead into the sky as they could to shoot down the approaching bombers. The first flight made their attack run, seven planes dropping as low to the ocean as their pilots dared. They led their targets, aiming their fish for where the battleships would be rather than where they were. To planes were shot down before they could release their weapons. The remaining five dropped their weapons and banked up and away from the lethal spray of anti-air gunfire.

The next flight came in from the other side of the formation. Numbering six planes they sighted up the other battleship, leading the target just like the other flight. They punched the weapons release just as the first group of planes got clear of the enemy air defenses, pulling up and banking away themselves. The first set of torpedoes met their target, sending three huge pillars of water up along the port side of the first battleship. The stricken shipwoman received a gruesome set of wounds. The first hit blasted her leg clear off from the knee down, causing her to fall face-first onto the water. The next torpedoes hit her in the side, tearing huge holes into her. The shipwoman's body was thrown onto its back by the force of the blast, her now lifeless staring up into the sky as four black F-14s flew past.

A few seconds later the next battleship was hit by a single torpedo, the column of water completely obscuring the shipwoman as the warhead went off. She emerged seconds later, battered and bleeding but still alive. The next flight of torpedo bombers would finish the job. With the other battleship now staring at her sinking sister, she didn't bring her AA guns around fast enough to draw a bead on the next group of torpedo bombers. Her escorts were terrible shots it seemed, and the remaining planes dropped their torpedoes. The battleship and one of the cruisers were hit, and both ships were sunk. It almost looked like the cruiser exploded considering how she vanished in the explosion, though Kestrels fighters caught the sigh of her torso slipping beneath the waves.

"Kestrel to Zuikaku. Good hits! Good hits! Three enemy ships are down!" She reported to the Yokosuka carrier.

 _"Yeah I saw!"_ Zuikaku responded happily. _"...or, well, my pilots saw...y'know what forget it. Akagi and I are recalling our fighters to the air defense screen. We still have your fighters on call?"  
_  
"Negative. My pilots are reporting winchester weapons. They're returning to rearm." Kestrel admitted as she vectored her fighters back towards her. "Will you all be okay without them?"

 _"Hey, I think we can handle a few minutes without four planes!"_ Zuikaku replied, doing her damnedest to try and sound offended. She failed if her somewhat cheerful tone was anything to go by. _"Nagato's reorganizing the fleet to make a counterattack. We should be ready by then. Are your planes going to be back?"  
_  
"They should. I'll be re-configuring their load-outs for surface strike. Should let me thin out the enemy surface vessels a bit for you."

 _"Sounds good, I'll let her know. You just get those fighters back in the air alright?"  
_  
"Count on it." Kestrel stated as four black dots appeared in the sky just over the horizon. Her fighters were on their way back. It was going to be agony not being able to see the fight from here and knowing that friendly ships were risking life and limb to fight off a numerically superior foe. It made Kestrel wish she had more planes on her. "Keep me posted. If there's anything I'll scramble my fighters back over there." 

-[]-[]-[]-

"ALL GUNS FIRE!"

Nagato's main battery opened up on a Ri-class cruiser that had gotten a little too close for its own good. A full broadside from eight 16.1-inch and ten 5.5 inch cannons was more than the cruiser could take and when the smoke cleared all that was left was its broken and mangled body slowly slipping beneath the waves.

Nagato turned her attention to the other shipgirls in formation around her. Her sister Mutsu sailed off her starboard side, her face fixed into a determined scowl as her eyes scanned for new targets. The cruisers Atago and Takao were hemming in the two dreadnoughts and four destroyers, Fubuki, Mutsuki, Yuudachi, and Yayoi had been hastily formed into a defensive perimeter around the formation, keeping their eyes open for planes and submarines.

This was only one formation in the Yokosuka fleet. Another two had been formed following the intervention of OFS Kestrel. One group consisted of Kougou leading, with the battleships Kirishima and Hiei and cruisers Tenryuu, Ooi and Kitakami rounding out the core of the fleet. Desdiv 6, Oboro, Miyuki, and Shimakaze provided cover for the group. The final group was comprised of the damaged carriers Akagi and Zuikaku, surrounded by the remaining eight destroyers. The cruiser Aoba was also there to tow Akagi back to port as soon as there was an opening.

Which was what Nagato was trying to do right now. Punch a hole big enough for her to get her two carriers out of the line of fire and into a position where they could more accurately direct and eventually recover their fighters. Word was that the two's damage control crews had nearly managed to somewhat repair the holes in their flight decks and would be able to at least recover their planes once the battle was over.

Right now Nagato had instructed Kougou's group to head off the heavier contingents of the Abyssal fleets and tied up their battleships. Meanwhile Nagato and her group would punch a hole in the slowly closing encirclement of cruisers and destroyers for the carriers to escape through. That was the plan at least, and so far with the breathing room Kestrel had bought them it was going well. Nagato's group had hunted down and sunk seven vessels so far, five destroyers and two cruisers, but there were many more yet left to go.

She sighted up another group that was just outside the range of her main guns. Two Ne-class heavies and a single Chi-class surrounded by six destroyers were steaming towards them off Nagato's port bow. This was a larger group, probably having formed up when Nagato's group had started picking off their comrades. She could almost feel their lust for blood from here. "Enemy ships thirty degrees to port!" She called out to the other ships.

"I see them." Mutsu responded. "We heading after them?"

Nagato only gave a nod in response, already changing course to bring her guns in range of the enemy ships. The Abyssals had made a huge mistake going up against two battleships and two cruisers when their heaviest member probably didn't break the 10000-ton mark. The Japanese kanmusu would make them pay for that mistake.

Just as soon as she'd turned into the attack, Nagato reversed her turn to bring her full broadside to the enemy. Mutsu reduced her speed slightly as she followed her sister's turn, adding her own guns to the mix. The Abyssals were within range of Nagato's guns, but they were still far enough away that it would be tough going trying to hit them. "OPEN FIRE!" She barked just before she opened up with a full broadside of her 16" main battery.

"HAI!" Mutsu shouted just as her own guns fired. Both ships' opening volleys missed, bracketing in the Abyssals with shell splashes. Nagato saw the enemy destroyers increasing speed, trying to rush into torpedo range before the battleships found their range. Unfortunately for them with how long Nagato had been engaged in fleet operations her gun crews had gotten _really_ good at working her rangefinders. Her next volley scored a hit on one of the Ne-class cruisers, a single shell punching down through its superstructure and blowing off one of its turrets. The Abyssal turned hard, trying to throw off the aim of the Japanese dreadnaught.

Too late, Nagato already had her range.

The next volley absolutely tore apart the enemy ship. Shells slammed into her now exposed side blowing huge chunks out of the ship, igniting her power magazines and fuel stores. The resulting explosion tore the Abyssal in half at the middle. Nagato heard Mutsu's guns roar, striking at the Chi-class and blasting away part of the torpedo cruiser's superstructure with every hit. Meanwhile the destroyers had crossed into the range of the two battleships' escort screen. Abyssal destroyers were now duking it out with Japanese destroyers and cruisers, small and medium sized caliber guns lobbing shells at their opposite number as torpedoes were launched. Nagato had to turn into the attack as a set of torpedoes meant for Atago missed and swam straight for her.

Mutsu had by this point already trained her guns onto the remaining Ne-class, letting loose with a full broadside and hemming in the enemy ship. Nagato switched her attention to the enemy destroyers that had gotten too close for their own good. They were well within her range, having closed the distance to launch their torpedoes and engage her escorts. She sighted up one of the destroyers, being close enough that she barely had to aim. The fist two shells sealed its fate, smashing into its bridge and into its engine block and blowing a huge hole in its side. The other six were just to make sure that it sank faster than its DC crews could fix the damage.

Another destroyer on her starboard was running at her at flank speed, maybe hoping to get off a salvo of torpedoes. All the way it was firing its main battery at Nagato, the tiny 5-inch shells bouncing harmlessly off her armor belt. The destroyer, in its haste to take out one of the Japanese battleships, had placed itself in a _horrible_ position. One, every one of Nagato's 10 starboard 5.5-inch guns could train onto the destroyer. Two, Takao was also in range to fire on the destroyer, and her guns were swiveling around to engage it.

Nagato didn't bother bringing her heavier cannons around, instead directing them to engage another destroyer at longer range. Her secondary battery sighted up the suicidal destroyer, unleashing a hail of 5.5-inch shells a split second before Takao fired her own 8-inchers. Under the combined fire of two ships the destroyer outright melted. Nagato, who's main battery had already started sighting up a new target, opened fire just as Fubuki launched her own torpedoes at the target. The Abyssal tin can was slammed from above and below by a combination of plunging shells and torpedoes slamming into it.

The Abyssals were collapsing as the now more organized Japanese kanmusu put the pressure on. Nagato couldn't even get her guns around fast enough to engage any more targets as the destroyers Mutsuki, Yuudachi and Yayoi tore apart the remaining three destroyers. This engagement couldn't have even been properly called a battle, more like a slaughter. With that group sunk there was a fairly large corridor for the carriers to get through.

"Aoba, Zuikaku," Nagato reported over the radio. "Corridor is open. Get through before it closes."

 _"Understood! We're moving!"_ Aoba reported quickly.

Nodding to herself, Nagato switched her attention to the other group of battleships. "Kongou, what's your situation?"

 _"Not good, dess!"_ Kongou reported amid the sounds of cannon fire and explosions. _"The Abyssals have us boxed in against six battleships! We're taking some pretty big hits here!  
_  
"Roger! We're diverting to your position now!" Nagato quickly replied, wheeling around to head towards the southwest where Kongou's group had been dispatched to head off the Abyssal heavy fleets. Kongou's group had always meant to be a delaying action to by Nagato's group to clear a lane for the carriers, but Nagato hadn't counted on the enemy boxing in the fast battleships. Now it was up to Nagato, who was not a fast warship mind, to race over to her other battle group to relieve them.

Unless.

"Nagato to Kestrel, do you have planes in the air?" She asked, switching to English. She heard the _woosh_ of a steam catapult on the other line before Kestrel replied.

 _"Just launched. Where do you need them?"_ The mystery carrier's clipped as she spoke. Admittedly it bothered Nagato that she had no idea where Kestrel actually was, but she had more pressing matters to worry about.

"Kongou's group has engaged a group of battleships and they're taking heavy fire. Do whatever you can to get them some breathing room!"

 _"Copy that."_ Kestrel replied. _"Get me a fix on their position and I'll vector my fighters over."  
_

-[]-[]-[]-

Kestrel watched through the eyes of her pilots as the four black Tomcats streaked at full afterburner towards the coordinates relayed by Nagato.

Relayed _vocally_. These girls needed to install a few GPS transmitters.

Actually that wouldn't have mattered since Kestrel couldn't sync her data with the local GPS satellites.

Doesn't matter, focus on the battle.

Soon enough the enemy battleships and their escorts came into view. So, did Kongou and her battle-group, surrounded and outnumbered over two-to-one. Strangely enough most of the enemy battle-group was made up of destroyers with few cruisers to escort the battleships. Up above Yokosuka and Abyssal planes dueled in the sky, each trying to keep the other from attacking the fleets below.

Not that it would matter much to Kestrel. When your planes could easily breach the sound barrier and they were going up against prop fighters you didn't necessarily need to worry about retaliatory fire.

Priority one, focus on the battleships to Kongou's rear. The Razgriz team was carrying six 500 lb guided bombs each. While they might not deal a significant amount of damage on their own to the battleships, but with a total of twenty-four bombs between the four aircraft they'd leave the enemy ships with some nasty wounds.

Each plane sighted up a battleship, achieving radar lock as they streaked in at 5000 ft. The enemy planes that weren't already engaged in combat with their opposite number from the Yokosuka fleet attempted to intercept, but at the speed the Razgriz team was flying they had barely a split second to line u a shot before the Tomcats were clear out of range.

One battleship crossed into Blaze's effective range, and the pilot let two bombs off the rack. The two guided bombs zeroed in on their targets, flying true and striking it amidships. Explosions rocked the vessel as they managed to punch through its upper deck armor and detonate inside. From one of the bomb's impact points, Kestrel figured that it had likely blown a hole in the side of the ship. Below the waterline if the list it began to take on was any indication.

Another three battleships met a similar fate as the rest of Razgriz team found their marks, releasing two of their bombs each as they flew past. One of the battleships took a bomb to the engine block, and her speed was cut down drastically. Another found one of her rear turrets jammed 20 degrees to port when a bomb punched through the deck nearby.

The jets wheeled around into a high-speed, high-G turn to come around for another pass. Already Kongou and the other two Yokosuka battleships were focusing their fire on the enemy ship with the broken engines. Kestrel left her for the friendly battleships to finish off, and turned her attention to the two undamaged heavies. Razgriz 1 and 2 headed for them, while 3 and 4 turned back to a pair of already damaged vessels.

The one with the jammed turret got hit first, taking another two bombs to her midsection, one going into her superstructure and the other punching into her boiler room. Some of her fuel stores ignited and blew a massive hole in her starboard side. Attempting to keep herself upright the ship began counter-flooding, which really only served to quicken her demise as more and more water kept pouring into her compartments.

The next ship to take a strike was one of the battleships left undamaged from the first pass. One hit her right in the bow, bending and twisting it out of shape and essentially punching two holes on either side of the ship.

The other undamaged ship took the next series of hits, which left her lacking a lot of the secondaries on her starboard after the smoke cleared. She'd been attempting to turn out of the way of the attack, which left her with a jammed rudder from the sheer force of the explosions.

The last ship had already been hit and listing. The last bomb widened the hole and essentially doomed the vessel to sink beneath the waves.

Razgriz team came around for their final pass at the battleships, dropping their remaining bombs on the Abyssal battlewagons. Only one was sunk by that pass, but the remaining three were so badly damaged as to be nearly useless in a stand-up fight. What's more is that Kongou's group had managed to fight their way out and sink another battleship with combined fire from three battleships and a volley of torpedoes from a destroyer.

Kestrel let herself grin at a job well done. Three enemy attleships sunk outright by airstrikes, one by surface action, and without the lost of a single attacking aircraft. Now though, Razgriz team was relegated to anti-air work with their Sidewinders, but that was something that the planes were more than happy to oblige. She'd just need to keep the enemy planes off of Kongou and her battle-group until they could get clear. Maybe provide a window for the few torpedo bombers mixed in among the planes to strike at the remaining ships.

Just then she spotted radar contacts.

...on her _own_ scopes. Not those of her planes.

And there was a lot of them by the looks of it. At least 30 aircraft moving in slowly from the Northeast. From their direction and the fact that most of the friendly aircraft she was seeing were still hanging back and providing cover for the Yokosuka fleet, odds were that those were Abyssal planes. Apparently the enemy had either figured out where she was, or they'd just guessed and vectored their planes on a search pattern.

"Ah hell." Kestrel muttered to herself, bringing her air-defense suites online and vectoring her fighters back towards the incoming strike group, all the while wishing she had an effecitve escort group. She radioed in to Nagato as she began locking her Sea Sparrows onto targets. "Nagato, I've got a situation back here. There's an inbound strike group closing on my position. I'm recalling Razgriz team to intercept. Kongou's on her own for now, over."

 _"Say again Kestrel?"_ Nagato asked from the other end. _"Did you say you have incoming?"  
_  
"Affirmative Nagato." Kestrel paused as four missiles streaked away from batteries towards the incoming planes, making sure that the _woosh_ of their rocket motors wouldn't drown out her voice. "I'm seeing about thirty inbound aircraft coming from the Northeast."

 _"Any chance you can avoid them?"_ Asked Nagato.

"I might have already engaged." Kestrel admitted sheepishly, watching as four aircraft disappeared from her radar scope, and she could see their flaming fragments falling towards the ocean from here. Immediately afterwards, the planes began scrambling in different directions to try and shake off her aim. Too bad missiles are radar guided ya morons. More missile locks sounded as her radar locked up more targets prioritizing the closest targets.

Suddenly, a voice that sounded _suspiciously_ like Zuikaku broke over the radio. _"Kestrel, please tell me you have an escort!"  
_  
"I don't." She admitted as more missiles flew off the racks towards the enemy fliers.

 _"AW C'MON!"  
_  
"Luckily, missiles seem to be _really_ effective." Kestrel added with a smirk when more planes dropped to her anti-air fire.

 _"Oh, now that's not even fair!"_ Zuikaku whined.

Kestrel had to suppress a snicker as she locked up more planes as what looked like torpedo bombers dove for the deck. Well crap. Against dub torpedoes she had little actual defenses once they got their fish in the water. Prioritize those bombers first worry about the others later.

Good thing Razgriz team was now on station. And in missile range. Four sidewinders streaked into the formation of torpedo bombers, knocking four of them from the sky before three more missiles from Kestrel finished off the remaining torpedo bombers that had started their attack runs. The last missile in her next salvo went up to blow a fighter out of the sky as her Tomcats started picking apart the enemy formation.

Boxed in by supersonic interceptors and a missile-equipped carrier, the enemy planes began dropping so fast it was hard to keep track of all the kills. A flight of four dive bombers managed to get above her amid the chaos, and tried to nose over into their attack dives. They didn't count on her CIWS guns to muck up their aim. The four gatling guns buzzed, sending streams of bullets up at the four planes, shredding three of them and detonating the payload of the final.

By this point the enemy planes had been reduced to only eight aircraft and had aborted their attack, turning around and moving full throttle out of the battlezone. Kestrel decided to let them go, choosing to save her missiles for any follow-up attacks. Besides, Razgriz team had exhausted their supply of missiles and were now down to guns-only engagements. They needed to resupply shortly.

"Kestrel to Nagato. Enemy attack force is breaking off." She reported as her fighters vectored around to begin landing procedures. "I'm undamaged and recalling fighters for resupply."

 _"Understood Kestrel."_ Nagato responded with a relieved sigh. _"Kongou's battle-group managed to get clear. They're roughed up but intact. All the same, we're pulling out and heading back to Yokosuka. Looks like the Abyssals are pulling out of the fight too."  
_  
"Fantastic. Good to know I gave them good cover." Kestrel said, extending her flight deck to receive her fighters. "Hey Nagato, would if be too much to ask if I could get an escort detail? I'm not too excited about sailing solo over here."

 _"Roger that Kestrel. My battle-group is on station. Report your position and we'll head over to provide backup."_


	3. Chapter 3 : Where's Osea?

Nagato steamed to the southwest, her battle-group was wrapped protectively around her as they searched for the mysterious carrier that had all but handed victory to the Japanese Kanmusu from the verge of defeat. Few of their number said anything, most of their attention being focused on scanning for threats. The Abyssals might have been falling back for the moment, that didn't mean they wouldn't try to get a few more shots off at the shipgirls.

But more importantly they kept their eyes on the horizon, scanning for any sign of the Carrier Kestrel. A lonely carrier was a vulnerable carrier, and Kestrel was alone. Wile she might not have been part of the JMSDF's Shipgirls, she'd been indispensable in the battle. As far as Nagato was concerned, that was enough to accept her into the fleet and bring her back to Yokosuka.

That and any carrier that could launch jets, let alone one that launched F-14s, would prove a huge boon to the war effort. If they could secure her support anyway.

Nagato was still concerned about the shipgirl's designation. _OFS._ No navy that she knew of used that designation, and the previously mentioned _Osean Maritime Defense Force_ did not exist to her knowledge. Which was a mystery that she and the Admiral would need to work out when they got back to port.

Just then, two of Kestrel's F-14s streaked by overhead, engines roaring as they came by at low altitude. Their wings were fully extended, moving at low speed through the air as they banked to present their backs to the Japanese shipgirls. And yet they were still moving as fast as any plane Nagato had seen.

"I'm so glad the carrier launching those things is on our side." Mutsu commented, eyes locked onto the two jets as they pulled up and around.

Nagato was about to agree when Yuudachi suddenly piped up. "Carrier spotted! Dead ahead, poi~!"

Sure enough, steaming towards them slightly off to port, was a carrier shipgirl. She was far enough away that Nagato had a hard time making out any details even with her spotters manning their binoculars. The two Tomcats had swung around and were heading for the new contact. "Nagato to Kestrel, I've got a carrier in visual range. Is that you?" Nagato asked through her radio.

 _"Kestrel to Nagato..."_ The Carrier replied mirthfully. _"That depends, is one of the two battleships I'm seeing you?"  
_  
Nagato allow herself a small smile of relief at making contact with the carrier. "I'll take that as a yes Kestrel." That earned her a small chuckle from the other side.

Now however, more details began to appear in her spotter's binoculars as the carrier now identified as Kestrel approached. She was remarkably tall, easily matching the stature of most of the battleship girls afloat in the pacific. Actually much of her figure matched up quite closely to the returned _Iowa_ -class shipgirls in the American Navy. Long powerful legs connected to sturdy stern, the only exception being the girls bust. She had shoulder-length platinum blonde hair that was kept out of her face by a black hairband, keeping the strands from getting in the way of her bright green eyes.

Her blouse, tie and jacket looked comparable to those used by the US Navy, though colored black with red accents that matched the colors of the pleated skirt around her hips. Black thigh-high stockings covered her legs, leading down to disappear behind the waves that crashed against the girl's "bow". On her back was what looked like the island that oversaw the carrier's operations, attaching the two halves of her angled flight deck to her via mechanical arms and keeping her arms free to move planes from the elevators on her hips to the catapults that launched her planes.

When Nagato saw the carrier, she couldn't help but feel slightly conflicted. Sure she was an extremely _powerful_ carrier that could launch jets and had an air defense network that incorporated surface-to-air missiles...

On the other hand...

"Nagato..." Mutsu breathed in disbelief.

"Mmm?"

"That's a _Nimitz,_ right?"

"Yes."

" _Nimitzes_ are supposed to be nuclear powered aren't they?"

"Yes they are."

There was a pregnant pause between the two battleships, during which most of the other shipgirls in the battle-group had turned to look towards the two battleships. The two battleships were unaware of the attention they'd gained, their eyes locked onto the approaching form of Kestrel.

"Ooyodo's not gonna be happy about this, is she?" Mutsu finally said mirthlessly. 

-[]-[]-[]-

Kestrel didn't really know what to think when she met up with the Yokosuka fleet.

On one hand she was happy that they seemed t have made it out of that battle alright, and she was relieved that she was finally getting support from a fleet rather than sitting out alone.

On the other she didn't really know what to make of them. These ship designs were _old_ for one. But more than that, with the enemy gone she had the opportunity to actually think over the information she had. Or rather her CIC had the opportunity to parse the information and compile it. The more it did that, the more Kestrel found it hard to tell that voice in her head that needed answers to shut up until they got to a friendly port.

Which actually brought her to her first question, the friendly port she was apparently sailing to. Nagato had said they were sailing to a naval base that went by the name of Yokosuka, which didn't match any locations on Kestrel's database. It was possible that this base was constructed since her sinking and she just wasn't familiar, but until she knew for sure it wouldn't stop her mind from wandering with possibilities.

The next question she had was on the ships next to her. She hadn't thought about it until, having operated on something akin to instinct until now, but these shipwomen also didn't match up with known ships from the countries Kestrel was familiar with. She had no idea what their designation, _JMSDF_ , meant exactly. Hell, she didn't even really know if Yokosuka was one port, or if it referred to the only friendly naval port in the _country_ of Yokosuka, which _also_ wasn't in her database.

So Kestrel just sailed along, surrounded on all sides by shipwomen - with the exception of the destroyers, those were more on the 'girl' side of the spectrum - who kept eyeing her with a mix of awe and apprehension, sneaking glances whenever they thought she couldn't see them. She had quickly found herself hemmed in by the two battleships, Nagato off her port side, and another named Mutsu off her starboard. Admittedly she was a bit concerned with the two massive gunboats on either side of her. At this range a full broadside from either ship would tear her apart in seconds if they decided to turn violent.

All the while her mind continued to wander, the little voice desiring answers growing stronger with each passing minute they sailed. She tried to busy herself by rotating her planes through refueling and air defense cover to keep her mind off it.

Eventually Kestrel couldn't quite take it anymore and turned to Nagato.

"Hey Nagato."

The battleship perked up a bit at being addressed, most of the trip having been spent in silence. "Yes Kestrel?"

"Where exactly _is_ Yokosuka?" She asked.

Nagato for her part was slightly confused for a split second. How could Kestrel not know where Yokosuka was. Then she thought about it for a moment and wondered if maybe Kestrel was just as confused about the whole situation as she was. There was always a period of disorientation and confusion for returned shipgirls, and it was possible that it was hitting Kestrel hard enough that her information was jumbled and she didn't remember where Yokosuka Naval Base was located. With that in mind, Nagato decided that she'd fill Kestrel in to help her adjust.

"Yokosuka Naval Base is located at the mouth of the Tokyo Bay in Japan." Nagato answered, hoping that it would sort of jog Kestrel's memory.

It didn't. Kestrel remained as confused as ever. That answer had only created further questions in her mind. She'd never heard of a place called Japan, nor had she heard of a Bay of Tokyo. "And what continent is that on?"

Nagato frowned. _Now_ she was getting very concerned about Kestrel and what she apparently remembered. How would an apparent _Nimitz_ -class carrier not know where Japan was? Who could she not know where Japan _is_? "Japan is an island nation off the coast of Asia, located off the Korean Peninsula." She said, giving the carrier a concerned look. "Are you alright?"

"I think so..." Kestrel replied, a hand coming to her chin as she tried to make some sense of what she was hearing. "Do you have a map I could borrow? Maybe that would help."

One of Nagao's fairies hopped onto the battleship's shoulder, proffering a tiny folded map which the battleship took between her fingers. Kestrel couldn't help but stare at the tiny person standing on Nagato's shoulder. He was barely an inch tall and was decked out in a uniform that Kestrel didn't quite recognize.

So she wasn't the only one with little people running around her internals.

Nagato stretched out her hand, offering the tiny piece of paper to Kestrel. After the tiny map was dropped into the palm of her hand, Kestrel dropped it into the breast pocket of her jacket. She could feel someone come to retrieve it, quickly rushing the parcel to her CIC where it was spread out on the map table.

Everything about that map was wrong to Kestrels crew. None of the continents matched up right. None of the countries matched up either, Osea and Yuktobania were gone completely. She cocked an eyebrow, giving Nagato a disbelieving glare. "Okay, where's the real map?"

"Excuse me?" Said Nagato, returning Kestrel's glare with a confused one of her own.

"Where's the real map? The one you gave me is a friggin' joke!" Kestrel replied, frustration leaking into her voice.

"Well, what does your map look like?" Mutsu suddenly piped up, her head tilted curiously as she faced Kestrel.

Kestrel resisted simply saying "normal", instead reaching into her breast pocket and handing a similarly tiny map to Mutsu, who took it and handed it to another little man on her shoulder who disappeared behind her neck. Mutsu's face took on an air of concentration as her own CIC smoothed the map out on the table and took it in. Her eyebrows raised slightly, and she swung around behind Kestrel to pull up alongside Nagato, before she passed the map to her sister.

After taking a look at the map herself, Nagato's eyebrows shot up. There, comprising a huge section of one of the continents, was a territory marked The Federation of Osea.

Federation of _Osea_.

 _Osean Maritime Defense Force.  
_  
"Kestrel..." Nagato's voice wavered. "...i-is this the map you're familiar with?"

"Yeah."

"And you would be from this 'Osean Federation', yes?"

"Yeah?" Kestrel sounded worried, like she thought she'd said something wrong.

Nagato took a deep breath to steady herself. She didn't want to have this conversation right now, not when they weren't back at port and at risk of attack. But one look at Kestrel told her that the carrier wasn't going to wait until they were back to port. She wanted answers _now._ "Kestrel...the Osean Federation... it doesn't exist."

Kestrels eyes widened in shock as if she'd just been shot in the chest. Her mouth opened and closed as she tried to say something, anything. Now Nagato's map started making a horrifying amount of sense. Osea didn't exist? Osea had never existed, not where she found herself now. She wanted to scream, cry, and curl up into a ball at the same time. Her home was gone. The country she fought for was _gone. Her whole world was gone.  
_  
She buried her face in her hands, trying to steady her breathing as her pace began to slow down. Kestrel didn't know what to do. For the first time in her life she had no plan, no target, not even a clue of where to start. Her CIC had gone dead. Her engineering crews had dropped their tools. The entirety of her operations had halted. Kestrel was frozen.

She vaguely registered voices trying to speak to her, but had no idea what they were saying. She didn't even know who it was that was trying to speak to her, just that they were talking to her. She remembered feeling someone's arms wrapping around her shoulders and pulling her into a tight hug. She didn't know who it was and didn't really care.

Her whole world was gone...

...Kestrel had never felt more alone.

-[]-[]-[]-

Nagato felt horrible.

She'd regretted saying anything involving Osea and how it didn't exist. Should she have kept it from Kestrel? As much as she wanted to spare the carrier trailing behind her, she knew that it wouldn't have mattered. Kestrel would have found out one way or another.

Still, it hurt to see her like this. Not even the familiar sight of Tokyo and Yokosuka Harbor appearing below the setting sun was able to lift Nagato's spirits.

Kestrel had done nothing the entire trip back save recall her fighters. Nagato figured that it was more instinctual, or perhaps based on communication from her fighters that they needed to land more than any conscious effort on her part. She hadn't responded to anything else, and when the fleet had started to sail back to port, Mutsu had had to coax Kestrel with small tugs to get her to move and then had to guide her back along with the fleet. Kestrel had just steamed lazily along, her head hanging with her face stuck in a shocked and horrified stare directed at the water directly in front of her bow. Nagato had held out hope that the Carrier would come around, and in her report to Admiral Goto she'd told him that she'd hoped they could speak to the carrier about her situation.

It was painfully obvious that wouldn't happen. Not today at least.

As the fleet came upon to the docks, she found the rest of their number had already made it back. She saw Akagi with her arms draped over the shulders of Kirishima and Hiei as the two battleships carried her over to the repair docks. Aoba had taken to guiding a blinded Zuikaku after them. Tenryuu had busied herself with trying to corral the destroyers on the docks into a cohesive unit, which even for a Destroyer Leader like the Light Cruiser was like trying to herd cats.

Admiral Goto had managed to avoid Kongou's "Burning Love" long enough to send her off to the repair docks and now stood at attention near the ramp to welcome the remaining shipgirls back, a somewhat tired looking Ooyodo standing off to his right. Admiral Goto himself didn't look in great spirits either, and considering who his eyes were locked onto it wasn't hard to figure out why.

After giving Kestrel another worried look Nagato accelerated towards the docks to greet her Admiral, leaving the carrier in the care of Mutsu.

Coming to a stop a few feet from Goto, Nagato went ramrod straight, clicking her heels together and bringing her hand up in salute. "Sir!"

"At ease Secretary Ship Nagato." Said Goto, his voice as impassive as one would expect from a member of the top brass. It softened however after he took another glance at the carrier being guided out of the water by Mutsu. "How is she?"

Nagato sighed, following his gaze to Kestrel. "Not good I'm afraid..." She began. "She's been entirely unresponsive the whole trip back."

"Mmmm." Goto hummed as he tapped his hand against the side of his leg. "I suppose we can't really blame her considering the circumstances." He admitted. "Any chance we could speak to her?"

Nagato shook her head. "Sadly, I don't think so. Mutsu and Atago were trying to get her to open up during the trip. She hasn't said a word."

Goto nodded, fixing his gaze on Nagato. "Then I suppose we can give her some space for a little while. Let her get herself back in order." He said. "In the meantime, I'd like to get your full report on the battle."

Nagato noddded. "Yes sir!"

Turning smartly on his heel, Goto led Ooyodo and Nagato towards his office. Along the way, the three passed by Mutsu leading Kestrel, lacking the angled flight deck of her rigging, towards what Nagato hoped was the mess hall. The battleship had no idea what the massive carrier would need to eat, but if her air wing was reduced to the level Nagato suspected then Oooyodo was likely going to have an aneurysm. 

-[]-[]-[]-

Kestrel was in a daze, her mind unable to think of anything else other than the fact that she was _incredibly_ far from home. She vaguely registered someone pulling her along, her legs feeling sluggish as she walked along behind them. She had no idea where she was going, and quite frankly didn't care.

Osea didn't exist. It hadn't been destroyed, that much she was sure of. It just hadn't existed. Ever. Period.

Yuktobania. Belka. Ustio. Sapin. Leasath. Aurelia. Erusia. Emmeria. Estovakia. North Point.

None of them existed.

She didn't know what to do. What _could_ she do? Where could she go? She had no home to go back to. No home to fight for.

She registered that someone had led her to a room, pushing her through the doorway. She registered the bed pushed up against the wall on the far side. She needed to sit down and think about her situation.

 _Not that it would help any.  
_  
She sat on the edge of the bed and... did nothing else. She didn't know what to do what she could do... 

-[]-[]-[]-

She didn't quite know how long she sat there on that chair, but she knew it wasn't-.

Chair?

Kestrel gazed around the room and noticed that it had changed greatly from where she'd been before. While she hadn't paid much attention to her surroundings, she _did_ know that the room she'd been in had really liked its wooden floors and ceilings. Here it was all metal, and arranged much like the bridge of a warship.

No wait, the bridge of an aircraft carrier…

...

 _Her_ bridge!

She jumped up from the cheap plastic chair that she'd been sitting in up 'til now, eyes gazing frantically around her bridge. She couldn't see out her windows, a soft white light blocking out everything beyond them. How had she gotten here? How could she be _inside her own bridge?  
_  
She heard someone clearing their throat behind her and she whirled around to come face to face with two men. One of them was a short heavyset man in a blue jumpsuit with a black jacket thrown over his shoulders. He was balding, his brown hair relegated to the sides and back of his head. A short, well cared for stubble of a beard graced his chin and his face wore a kind and friendly smile.

The other man was instantly familiar to her however. He wore a Osean Navy Service Uniform, a heavy black duster hanging loosely from his shoulders. On his head was a white captains cap and a white mustache sat perfectly trimmed on his face. His smile was comparatively happy, like he was locking eyes with a daughter he hadn't seen in years.

But he wasn't her father.

He was her _captain!  
_  
Which meant that the other man was 'Pops', to some known as 'Huckebein the Raven'.

"Glad to see you could join us." Pops said, taking a few lazy steps towards her. "Hope this isn't too mind bending...but we needed to speak to you."

Kestrel instinctively brought her heels together, standing as straight as she could as she snapped a crisp salute. "Sir!"

"At ease Kestrel." Captain Andersen said after returning the salute. "How are you holding up?"

Kestrel dropped the salute. "Fine sir." Andersen fixed her with a stare that said he wasn't buying it, a stare echoed by Pops of to the right. She wasn't fooling anyone, they knew just how hard she was taking it. She'd just lied to her _captain._

"I'm sorry sir." She said.

"Please, just call me Andersen." Her Captain said. "I'm just an old man with too many losses and only one victory to his name."

"You're also my Captain sir." Kestrel stated.

"True." He agreed with a nod. "...and as Captain, it is my duty to know how those under my command are faring. So, I'd like to know what's on your mind."

Only then did Kestrel let her shoulders slump forward. What _was_ on her mind? She felt alone, that was certain. So crushingly alone that she didn't know what to do anymore. She had no country to fight for anymore, Osea didn't exist after all. She didn't have any friends to fight for, she had no connection to these 'Japanese' ships. She was a carrier with no mission and few pilots. A worthless carrier by any sense of the word.

"I... don't know what to do sir." She admitted, letting her gaze drop to the floor. "Osea is gone. What is there left for me?"

"You're confused because you don't have a country to fight for?" Andersen questioned. Kestrel just shrugged then nodded. She didn't know if that was exactly right, but it was close enough to what she was feeling. Andersen smiled and shook his head, giving a low chuckle as he took a couple steps back with his hands in his coat pockets. "Kestrel when have we ever fought _only_ for Osea?"

She met his gaze with a questioning look. "Sir?"

"1995, the Belkan War. You supported _Allied_ forces while you were still under the command of Captain Weeker throughout the entire war." He began. "That was before you were even formally commissioned to the Maritime Defense Force. At the end of the last war, you essentially betrayed your country to restore peace between Osea and Yuktobania, a country that until a few weeks prior had been considered your enemy."

"And today, without prompting, you engaged and defeated an enemy fleet engaging another unknown fleet." Pops added, walking over to stand next to the carrier. She turned to the old ace, his friendly smile remaining stuck to his face. "You never needed a country to fight for Kestrel. You've fought for causes, never for countries."

"This world is at war, that much is obvious from today's engagement." Andersen stated as he walked over to the windows, the light vanishing in that instant and revealing her flight deck, four black planes parked off to the side. Four pilots sat near the jets, and while it was impossible to see their faces from here she knew who they were. "They'll need a carrier. One with an accomplished fighter wing. One that has beaten the odds time and again up until the end."

"But to do that, we need an escort." Pops said as both he and Kestrel walked over to the windows, standing next to Captain Andersen. "I'm not a sailor, but I know that a lonely carrier is a vulnerable carrier."

"…and we need intelligence." Andersen added. "We have no true idea what this world is like, and we don't know who or what we'll be fighting against."

"Our best chance to find this intel and support is to speak with the local base commander." Pops continued on, turning to Kestrel. "We can't do it..." He motioned to himself and Andersen. "...which means you've got to pull yourself out of this funk you're in and practice your social skills." His smile grew slightly as he said that, which Kestrel wasn't sure was supposed to be reassuring, or if the man was trying to seem intimidating and utterly failing.

Kestrel just nodded. She wasn't really looking forward to having to go out and speak to anyone right now. She wanted to be alone. But it wouldn't do her any good to sit on her butt doing nothing for extended periods. As a ship, she knew what happened when sailors got antsy and impatient. She knew that she wouldn't be immune to that either.

"Besides..." Pops said with a shrug of his shoulders. "...last I heard, we're running low on ordinance, spare parts, and fuel for the jets. I figure we can at least get resupplied while we're here."

Just then a low grumble filled the room, and both men began staring at Kestrel's stomach. The carrier blushed as her stomach voiced its own opinion on the matter. She could feel her stores of missiles, both plane launched and those from her surface-to-air batteries, bombs, jet fuel, parts for aircraft and her own systems were dangerously. Her stomach gave another rumble as her eyes suddenly found the floor _very_ interesting.

"I-I'll get on that sir." She said, embarrassed by her unruly stomach.

"Good." Andersen said with a smile. "I suppose that concludes our meeting." The two men headed to the door, stepping through and closing it behind them. She was now the only one left in the bridge. But not for very long.

She soon found herself back in the bedroom she'd been brought to. It was plain, and largely unfurnished aside from the bed and a desk. Kestrel stood up off the bed and headed for the door, prepared to go wherever she needed to get her resupply. As she reached for the doorknob she paused, her hand inches from grabbing hold. Her heart sank as she came to a simple realization.

She had no idea where to go for resupply. _She didn't even know where to go to ask directions!  
_  
Her head clonked against the closed door as she let out a frustrated groan. Her stomach echoed that sentiment with a hungry grumble of its own.

"Ah shut up." She growled at it.


	4. Chapter 4 : Settling In

Kestrel sat on a chair outside Admiral Goto's office, twiddling her thumbs together nervously as she waited for him to call her in. He'd told her to meet him in his office after her attempts to resupply, and from the way he'd glared at the mountain of plates she had this sinking feeling that she'd overstepped her bounds. Maybe she should have asked first before piling up her plate?

So now she waited, for whatever reason. If she had to guess, it was probably because the Admiral was getting through a few last minute requisition forms or other such official business. But some part of her couldn't help but wonder what was going on behind those doors. Not to mention that she _swore_ she could hear two distinct voices speaking on the other side.

Either Goto liked to talk to himself in another voice or he was talking to someone on the other end.

She heard the door open, and turned to see a cruiser, Ooyodo she remembered, sticking her head through the door. "The Admiral is ready to see you."

Kestrel nodded, getting up from her seat and following Ooyodo into Goto's office. Inside the office, the blinds had been drawn, leaving the room dark if not for the lights that had been switched on. Goto sat in his chair, fingers interlaced as he rested his arms on the oaken desk in front of him. Nagato stood off to his right, her back straight and at attention. A large projector screen had been set up to the left side of the room, displaying a map of what her CIC identified as this world's pacific ocean.

Kestrel snapped to attention, locking her eyes on Admiral Goto. She had no idea whether she should salute or not. On one hand, he _was_ an Admiral. On the other, he wasn't an _Osean_ Admiral so she felt saluting wasn't much of a requirement. So she decided to leave it up to him to make the first move. If he saluted she would return it, even though him saluting her first would be a massive breach in protocol.

"You wanted to see me sir?" She began, trying to break the ice when Goto did nothing.

"I did, Kestrel." Goto nodded. "We have a lot to talk about."

"Sir, if this is about my unsanctioned resupply I apologize. I take full responsibility for my actions and will endeavor to clear any resupply operations with you in the future."

Goto nodded. "Apology accepted Kestrel, though I can forgive you on being hungry. It's not something unheard of in newly returned Shipgirls." Kestrel willed her stomach to stay quiet, and not punctuate his words with an mutinous gurgle. She still hadn't fully restocked yet. "But that's not entirely what I wanted to speak to you about." Ooyodo sat down at another desk next to the projector, an older looking computer sat on top. Kestrel watched the cruiser open up a word document and kept her fingers on the keyboard at the ready. She was getting ready to take notes.

"Kestrel, I need to know more about you." He continued bluntly. "I have the benefit of looking up the service histories of multiple ships in multiple navies prior to their return. I know their capabilities and I know how they might behave both on and off the battlefield." He motioned to Nagato standing next to him. "I know Nagato's launch date, I know how she sank, I know here capabilties, armor, weapons, etc. But more importantly I know where her loyalties lie. I know what cause she fights for." He now motioned to Kestrel. "What I know about you is comparatively limited. I can make some educated guesses admittedly, but the specifics I know nothing about. I don't know your service records or the units you have stationed aboard or were assigned to. I know nothing of your weapons compliment or targeting systems. I don't know what causes you fight for or where your loyalties-."

"Peace, sir." Kestrel cut him off.

There was a pause. "Excuse me?" He asked, slightly confused.

"I fight for peace, that's all." She repeated.

Goto blinked, but recovered quickly. He _was_ taken aback by Kestrels sudden interruption, but he could let it slide. The Japanese Kanmusu had shown a much different temperament than many had initially expected. Most, especially those from more western nations, thought that they would be warmongers, ore concerned with restoring the Empire of the Rising Sun to prominence while defeating the threat of the Abyssals once and for all.

Instead they had been repentant, wishing only to make amends for the atrocities committed by both themselves and the country they'd served. Now they they fought to preserve human life adn stand fast in defense of Japan and her allies, including the country that they had fought against. Maybe Osea had been a warmongering country, and this was Kestrels attempt to absolve herself?

"Very well then Kestrel," He said, straightening in his chair. "In that case I'd like to propose and exchange of information. I'll ask you questions about you and I will endeavor to answer any questions you ask in return. Sound fair?"

Kestrel nodded. "Go ahead sir."

"Alright, why don't we start with your service history..." 

-[]-[Three Hours Later...]-[]-

Kestrel stood in front of an increasingly exhausted looking Goto. Ooyodo was busy stretching, letting out the tension in her fingers from typing away at the computer for three hours straight. The sun had since disappeared completely if the lack of light filtering in between the blinds was any indication. Nagato had since left the room, only returning to offer Kestrel a chair when it became clear that they would be at this for a while.

She'd refused at the time, not wanting to be a bother after her stunt in the mess hall.

She was regretting that decision. He feet were aching something awful.

On the plus side, her CIC had plenty of data to pour over regarding this new world.

Goto on the other hand, was trying to wrap his mind over what he'd just heard. And utterly failing.

Kestrel, by all accounts, was an _astounding_ ship. She was for all intents and purposes, a _Nimitz_ -Class Supercarrier, although the Oseans apparently called them the _Hubert_ -Class. Her weapons and electronics loadouts were remarkably similar, and she also confirmed a nuclear power source for her turbines. And she had a service record that most other shipgirls would _kill_ for. She'd never taken a single hit until her sinking, despite coming under attack from multiple sources. She'd stood as the lone survivor of a devastating attack by a weapon that bordered on a nuclear blast in terms of destructive power.

But even more amazing was her air-wing.

The four black planes that called her decks home.

They _shattered_ his thoughts on what Aces could be. Combined, Razgriz Squardon, had a confirmed kill-count that numbered in the hundreds. Their mission record was nearly spotless aside from a few issues here and there. They had single-handedly turned the tide of an entire war, and then _ended_ it after being betrayed by their country.

But then Goto had dared to ask how the rest of Kestrel's airwing was doing, and her answer was concerning. Kestrel _had_ no other planes, the only other unit operation off her flight deck was a helicopter unit called Sea Goblin, who only had access to a single chopper at this point. Also, even though she'd just consumed Akagi's typical meal three times over, she'd _barely_ managed to restock her ordinance and fuel reserves. What was worse, Kestrel only had four pilots available to fly any aircraft she managed to restock, maybe five if she really pushed it and pulled another one of her crew out of retirement and into the pilot's seat.

 _Which meant,_ that even if Goto managed to convince Kestrel to join the JMSDF that she would only be able to launch five aircraft at any given moment, maybe six if the situation called for it and she provided a plane for the fifth fighter pilot on board. At the same time, her resource expenditures appeared to be high even when compared to notable guzzlers like Akagi or Yamato after protracted combat. And she was also being the _single largest surface combatant in any shipgirl fleet.  
_  
Needless to say, Goto was having to weigh the pros and cons of having a ship with an astoundingly powerful but limited airfleet while also being a big juicy target for the Abyssals. He wasn't liking the look of the situation. When Nagato had reported sighting what had appeared to be a friendly _Nimitz_ in shipgirl form, he could admit that he'd gotten excited. He'd hoped that it would give Japan and her allies a massive boon to their efforts against the Abyssals.

Imagine a carrier-girl that could field nearly a hundred high-performance jet fighters armed with precision guided munitions. The Abyssals wouldn't know what hit them.

And while he had to concede that Razgriz Squadron was _very_ good, he also had to admit that in the last battle Kestrel had held all the cards. The enemy had already been engaged by the Japanese Kanmusu, her own position was unknown, and her jets could perform better than their opponents. In short, until the Abyssals had found her, which was likely through dumb luck, Kestrel had _dictated_ the pace of the battle. _She_ could choose when and where her fighters could attack, only recalling them from the battle-zone to resupply or defend her when she did finally come under attack.

What would happen were the situation reversed? The Razgriz couldn't be everywhere at once, and one thing had become apparent during the war:

The Abyssals were not above sending wave upon wave of combatants at the allies if it meant killing even _one_ of the defenders.

Which is why Goto had to face the facts that Kestrel, while she would have greater endurance than most carrier girls in the fleet, was also a highly specialized vessel. Her fighter wing was geared, at least for the foreseeable future, towards precision strike and air defense missions at long range. At everything else, she was passable at best and a liability at worst.

And it wasn't even really an issue that could be rectified with a strict training regimen like those the Americans had given Japanese escort carriers on anti-submarine warfare. Kestrel literally _did not_ have the equipment to make up her shortcomings. He'd need to speak with someone who had slightly more knowledge about operating modern carriers before he even tried to integrate Kestrel into the JMSDF's ranks.

"I think that's all for now Kestrel, thank you." He said to the waiting carrier. "I'd like to continue this conversation, but its getting late and I have other matters to attend to."

"Understood sir." Kestrel said with a final salute. "Am I dismissed?"

"You are dismissed." Goto confirmed, standing up and returning the salute.

Returning her hand to her side, Kestrel turned and strode out the door and into the main hallway of the officer's building. She was right about the time of night. It was dark out, the only light coming from the twinkling stars, the full moon, and the glow of the nearby city. Tokyo she reminded herself. She yawned, just then realizing how tired she was. She'd participated in a naval battle, learned that she'd woken up in a world alien yet similar to her own, and then proceeded to talk at length about her own history while absorbing the current global situation of _this_ world.

She considered heading back to the mess hall for one final top up but quickly quashed that idea. She'd already sort of overstepped her bounds, and she had enough supplies to last her for a week at her current operations level. Maybe she should get some rack. Sounded like a good idea.

Except...

She looked down at herself, and at the uniform she was wearing. Sure it made a mockery of the OMDF's dress uniform, what with the pleated skirt and black-and-red color scheme, but she liked it. It was comfortable and relatively professional, and its color scheme match that of the Razgriz Squadron. How she was worthy to wear those colors she may never truly understand, but she felt no less proud to wear them.

She didn't want to get it all wrinkled wearing it to bed. She'd need to find something else to change into.

Maybe Nagato would have an idea? But where had the Battleship gone? She'd said she was heading to her office, but Kestrel had no idea where that was. Now she knew each office had a plaque that _probably_ had the name of whoever it belonged to on it. But she couldn't read the runes.

So apparently in this new world she was functionally illiterate. Great.

Well she didn't want to ask Goto about where she could find Nagato, not after she'd just left the room. Well, time to try the next best thing. Knock on the doors and hope one of them contained Nagato's office. She started on the door to the Admiral's left, giving it a quick knock. "Nagato?"

"Kestrel?!" Nagato's confused and strangely flustered voice sounded behind the door.

Kestrel let out a sigh of relief. Her first guess had been the right one. "Can I ask you something?"

"S-sure!" There was the sound of a drawer closing on the other side of the door. "What is it?"

"Do you know where I could find a change of clothes?" She asked, not bothering to open the door. She got the feeling that Nagato wanted her privacy, though she couldn't pin down _why_. "I kinda don't want to mess up my uniform."

There was a pause. "I think Kongou or her sisters might have something that could fit you, though I'm not sure. Only person I can think of that would _definitely_ have something that would fit you is Yamato but she's at Sasebo right now."

"Right, I'll go see if I can track down Kongou. Thanks Nagato!" Kestrel said before she headed off to find the other Japanese Battleship.

Nagato for her part let out a relieved sigh inside her office. She'd hidden her tiny pet inside one of her desk drawers when she'd heard Kestrel knocking. Thankfully the carrier hadn't simply barged in and had left the door closed. Her secret hamster companion was still a secret.

Speaking of.

She opened the drawer and pulled out her indignant-looking fuzzy friend, nuzzling its soft little belly with her nose. "I'm so sorry for shoving you i that drawer." She cooed. "But mama had to keep you safe." 

-[]-[]-[]-

Kestrel found herself standing in the changing room to what looked like a public bath house. Correction, it was _supposed_ to be the Repair Docks. She'd been told that by a passing sailor when she'd asked for directions. Directions to Kongou, who she hoped had something that would fit her. Thinking about it on her way here, she was getting worried that the battleship wouldn't have anything that _could_ fit her. She knew she was a full head taller than Kongou, and had hips for _days_ by comparison to the much smaller Japanese Warship.

Well it was only for one night. Hopefully.

Kestrel made her way towards the doors leading to the dock area. She could here people talking on the other side, and one of them sounded like Kongou.

Kestrel opened the door. She was sure it was fine.

"Hey Kongou I need- OHMYGODYOURENAKED!" Kestrel whirled around, her face flushing as she quickly came to the realization that she'd walked in on three battleships _who were also naked_.

Kestrel didn't know if she was blushing from embarrassment or…no, no it was embarrassment alright.

The giggling battleships behind her didn't help.

And she was still standing in the doorway, not even daring to try and shut the door behind her. She had convinced herself that she would only make this entire situation if she moved.

Kongou, on the other hand, was trying desperately to reign in her giggles. Sure, the Americans had been prudish about how the Japanese handled their repair docks, but they never reacted quite like _that._ Seeing Kestrel standing ramrod straight in the middle of the doorway though…

…best deal with this before the poor girl blows one of her boilers. That much steam heading to your face _can't_ be good for you.

Managing to get her laughter under control, Kongou pulled herself out of the warm water for the second time today. Wrapping a towel around herself, she made her way over to the flustered carrier. "Kestrel? Did you need something?"

Kongou didn't believe it was possible, but Kestrel somehow managed to stand straighter. "Uh, y-yes, no, m-maybe?!" Kestrel stuttered, her voice having raised a few octaves.

Kongou sighed. "C'mon, let's get in the changing room. You're letting all the steam out, Dess!" She gently began pushing the carrier out of the doorway.

Or at least _tried_ to. Apparently whenever Kestrel dropped anchor, she _dropped anchor._ Had her DC crews just welded her feet to the floor?

Then again…30,000-ton fast-battleship…100,000-ton supercarrier…

…she probably should've expected this.

And since she couldn't leave the room with said supercarrier _blocking the way out_ , she was stuck with shoving.

"C'mon Kestrel," Kongou grunted as she tried to shove the rigid carrier though the doorway, making sure to fix Hiei and Kirishima with a glare when the two of them started giggling once again. "We can talk about this in the changing room!"

"A-are you decent?" Kestrel timidly asked, not budging an inch.

"Dess! I have a towel!" She stated.

"O-okay then…"

Finally the two made it into the changing room, with Kestrel moving in under her own power. "Just give me a second to put some clothes on and we can talk." Kongou said, opening the locker she'd shoved her stuff in and quickly donned actual clothes. The entire time she was doing that, Kestrel had refused to turn around. "Okay, what did you need to talk to me about?"

"I uhm…" Kestrel said, half turning to face Kongou, her face still flushed red. "I need something else to wear." She said, motioning to her outfit. "I don't want to sleep in this, and Nagato said you might be able to lend me something."

A grin spread across Kongou's face, quickly reaching a size that had Kestrel reflexively going to general quarters. "Follow me, Dess!" Kongou all but _cheered_ , grabbing Kestrel by the arm and dragging the unprepared carrier behind her. 

-[]-[]-[]-

Goto sat behind his desk, going over various reports and complaints pertaining to what had _lovingly_ been described as "magical sparkly shipgirl bullshit" by most members of the rank and file. It was enough to give him a headache, no matter how many times he'd seen it.

Of course, it wasn't enough that the man had to manage the drama of his own base, oh no. No, he also had to worry about the drama going down at Sasebo and Kure and the various bases they had in the Philippines, as well as the few incident reports that the Americans forwarded to him when his girls across the pond did things they weren't supposed to.

It was probably Musashi.

He skimmed the report.

Yep, it was Musashi.

Why couldn't she let her beef with Iowa go? World of Warships is a thing for Pete's sake!

Not to mention he was also having to draft up an interim measure for his Carrier Division, what with his only two carriers down. He was considering bringing Kaga back from Sasebo and, if she were willing, assign Kestrel as a part of a provisional Carrier Division.

He was still somewhat chafing at the idea of sending in an understaffed carrier into the heat of battle, but he honestly didn't have much choice. The Abyssals only seemed to be getting stronger every day, and more and more often his girls were coming back with more and more damage.

He _needed_ to get more Carriers into the fight.

But that still left him with a serious problem.

Kestrel _wasn't_ a Japanese Shipgirl. Hell, she wasn't American, British, French, or German. She served a country that didn't exist. He had no real ability to order her around, and honestly, he didn't doubt that she might refuse to follow his orders if he tried.

He needed to convince her to sign on to the JMSDF. Perhaps not as a full member, but perhaps as a volunteer unit. She said she fought for peace, maybe that was a way he could sway her decision?

He shook his head. Having to try and coerce someone into fighting the Abyssals rubbed him the wrong way. Most of the returned shipgirls had volunteered in a heartbeat, ready to serve their country of origin in the defense of humanity.

"How desperate am I?" He muttered to himself, rubbing his temples.

There was a sudden knock at the door. Goto straightened himself in his chair, trying to at least seem somewhat presentable despite the bags growing under his eyes. "Come in."

Goto expected a few things to happen. He expected a freshly caffeinated Ooyodo walking in to get caught up on her inventory checks. He expected a "Stealth Burning Love Tackle" by Kongou, even if she _was_ supposed to be in the repair docks.

What he _didn't_ expect to see was Tenryuu peaking through the half-open door. Normally at this hour she would be spending time with the Destroyers of DesDiv 6, helping them get ready for bed. The fact that she was _here_ instead of _there_ was already sounding alarms bells in his head.

The fact that he could see the concern and worry starting to creep over the light cruiser's face was not helping. Something was going down.

"Hey Admiral?" Tenryuu began, trying to sound less worried than she felt. "You wouldn't have seen DesDiv 6 around here wouldja?"

Goto sighed. It never ends does it? "No, I can't say I have." He said, shifting a few papers on his desk into slightly neater piles. "Why?"

"Well… I kinda left them in their room to go get something, and they were gone when I got back." She explained. "Just trying to find where they'd gone."

Goto shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't help you there Tenryuu." Well he could, but he'd had enough Shipgirl Drama for today. Besides, DesDiv 6 were good girls. "I'm sure they'll turn up eventually."

"Right, sure." Tenryuu said with a nod. "Just, let me know if they show up here or something."

"Will do Tenryuu." He said, before nodding that she could leave.

Tenryuu left the room quickly after that, shutting the door behind her. Goto tried going back to his work, but found that he just couldn't get his eyes to focus on any of the forms lying in front of him. Maybe he needed a break, it was past eight after all. He could deal with the rest of this tomorrow morning. 

-[]-[]-[]-

 _"Note to self: Do NOT under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES let Kongou come along clothes shopping."_

That was what Kestrel thought as she carefully closed the door to the bedroom she was certain was hers. As far as she was concerned, she'd be avoiding Kongou for a while.

That girl was crazy. I mean she'd only asked to borrow some clothes to sleep in! Simple, right? Grab a spare set, get changed, go to sleep, return them in the morning. Straighforward!

 _Apparently not for Kongou!_

Kestrel had absolutely _no idea_ how long she'd been stuck in Kongou's room as the Fast Battleship went through all kinds of different outfits of sleepwear. She talked a mile a minute, and it actually took her CIC's _codebreakers_ to make heads or tails of what she was saying.

That wasn't necessarily the worst bit. The _worst_ bit was that _apparently_ the laws of reality _didn't apply_ to Kongou! That woman could go from zero to sixty in a nanosecond, and moved fast enough that Kestrels Radar systems couldn't actively track her position.

Which is how Kestrel found herself being forcibly shoved into different outfits against her will, only escaping when Kongou retreated to grab more clothes for her to try on.

The less said about some of those outfits the better. There better damn well not be any cameras hidden anywhere. If anybody caught sight of her wearing that… _monstrosity_ Kongou'd shoved her into she'd wind up scuttling herself out of embarrassment!

Well at least she'd managed to snag a t-shirt and a pair of shorts out of it. She didn't know if it fit and, quite frankly, didn't care. It was something and it was only for one night.

And if she wound up stretching them out it was Kongous fault. Yes it was petty. Still Kongou's fault. Shut up.

So Kestrel, deciding that she'd had enough excitement for one day, quickly changed into her borrow clothes and quickly crawled under the covers of the only bed in the room.

She had a faint memory from her crew on how sleeping in a bed felt like, and going into she didn't have very high expectations for how it would feel. Most of her crew's mentality had sort of seen sleep as a necessity, and didn't really look forward to sleeping in the cramped bunks of her crew section.

Then again, this was a bed, not a cot.

And it felt like heaven. The sheets were soft, the pillows fluffy, and the mattress firm yet supple. The covers wrapped her whole body in warmth and she let herself sink further in with a contented sigh. They even smelled like lavender, probably freshly washed.

She could lie there for days. Just sleeping. Just…sleeping...all her…worries…

…away...


	5. Chapter 5 : Day Two

The suns rays were only beginning to peek over the horizon when Kestrel began to stir. He limbs felt stiff and sluggish and her mind was groggy from her deep sleep. On the one hand, she felt well rested, and that was always a good feeling to have.

On the other, the sluggishness she felt reminded her a lot of her time stationed at Kirwin island. Not exactly fond memories to be had there.

Well, time to get up and greet the-.

She stopped. Something was definitely wrong. Her radar was picking up four surface contacts, likely destroyer or frigate class.

And if the large mass under her bedsheets was any indication, they were close.

Peering under the comforter, Kestrel came face to face with a quartet of destroyers all clustered around her stomach. All of them were sound asleep, softly snoring away as they nuzzled up to each other, or in one brunette's case, Kestrel's stomach.

The carrier blinked. She had no idea what was going on or what to do in this situation. They were absolutely adorable, all sleeping in that little cuddly tangle of limbs like that. But Kestrel kinda wanted to get out of bed today. Not that it wasn't comfortable enough like this, the heat from the destroyer's idling boilers was actually kinda nice, but she wanted to maybe get a bit of breakfast and run some launch drills.

Just as she was ready to try wiggling out from underneath the destroyer pile, one of them stirred somewhat. A small, meek looking brunette dressed in a set of footie pyjamas nuzzled into Kestrels side, a tired little whimper escaping the girls nose.

….

Dammit she had stuff she wanted to do today! 

-[]-[]-[]-

Tenryuu was getting worried. She was getting very worried.

'Course she didn't show it, she had an image to keep up after all. She did her damnedest to keep up the right amount of "relaxed badass" as she went through the entire base, looking high and low for the four little destroyers under her charge.

DesDiv 6 hadn't come back to their room last night. Something was up, and Tenryuu was going to get to the bottom of it. If those girls got into any trouble!...

She searched everywhere. No stone was left unturned if she could help it. She checked the cafeteria, no sign of them. She double-checked the destroyer dorms, nothing. She checked the cruiser dorms, that was also a nope. She checked the battleship dorms, all she found was Kongou obliviously giggling while she cuddled a plushie of the Admiral himself. The less Tenryuu questioned _that_ the better.

Which just left the Carrier dorms. Honestly, she should've checked them sooner. What with Akagi and Zuikaku in the repair docks and Kaga off base, it was probably the best place they had to hide out in. And Tenryuu knew better than anyone else that destroyers could be sneaky little brats when they wanted to be.

She checked every room searching for any hint of DesDiv 6's adorable little behinds. She even checked Kaga's room, which is something she'd _never_ do if the carrier were still around. Nothing. Not even a hint. All she had left was one of the guest rooms, usually reserved for when a foreign carrier visited Yokosuka.

Only one there was that new carrier Kestrel.

Hopefully Kestrel was a morning person…

Tenryuu slowly turned the doorknob, trying not to wake the carrier as she poked her head inside.

She immediately slapped a hand to her mouth when she saw what was inside. To keep herself from barking orders at the destroyers of course, not to stop herself from squeeing. Honestly she wouldn't squee. She never squeed. She was too much of a badass for that.

Desdiv 6 were all clustered on top of the carrier, their arms tangled and entwined with one another's as they slept peacefully. She saw Hibiki sleepily nuzzling Ikazuchi's hair who snored into Kestrels stomach. Akatsuki was cuddling Inazuma, who in turn was latched onto the carriers side.

Kestrel herself was wide awake, her arms staying as far away as possible from the sleepy little destroyers. Apparently, the big carrier couldn't bring herself to wake them.

Kestrel's head slowly turned towards the light cruiser in the doorway. Her pleading eyes locked onto Tenryuu, begging her to do something about the cuddlepile stuck to her stomach.

"Hellllllp meeeeee!" She whispered, motioning to the pile.

It took every ounce of Tenryuu's willpower to not burst out laughing. 

-[]-[]-[]-

Kestrel was stuck under a cuddle-pile of destroyers for a few more moments while Tenryuu tried and failed in supressing her giggles.

Giggles at Kestrel's expense.

 _Yeah, go ahead and laugh it up you overgrown tugboat._

Amazingly the snickering from the cruiser didn't so much as elicit a peep from the four destroyers latched to Kestrel's belly. Those four must sleep like rocks, because Tenryuu wasn't exactly being subtle with her laughing. Well she was at least trying to be, that had to count for something, right?

Eventually though the light cruiser's giggles began to die down. "You done?" Kestrel asked flatly as one of the Destroyers snuggled up to her side, murmuring something in her sleep. Kestrel felt a strange sensation in her chest, kind of like one of her reactors was spooling up past its minimum safety limits. She'd need to have her engineers look into that.

"Yeah, yeah I'm done." Tenryuu said, the last of her giggles dying down. "I just really wasn't expecting to see that today."

"I wasn't exactly expecting to wake up to this today either." Kestrel commented, shrugging her shoulders as much as she dared without disturbing the destroyers. One of the destroyers shifted, which drew another set of tired mumbling from another.

Tenryuu, finally getting her composure back, cleared her throat before walking over to the bed and gently tapping one of the destroyers on the shoulder. Or at least what Kestrel _thought_ was her shoulder. The destroyers were so tangled together it was kind of hard to figure out where one ended and another began.

"Alright you guys, wakey, wakey." Tenryuu stated as the destroyer stirred. "Lets let the new girl get out of bed today, yeah?"

The black-haired destroyer was the first one to actually return to the realm of the living, blinking away the last vestiges of sleep. "Mmm… Tenryuu?" She mumbled sleepily as she rubbed at her eyes, glancing up at the cruiser.

"Sleep well Akatsuki?" Tenryuu asked, giving the little destroyer a knowing grin. "Looks like you found a comfy new pillow."

Kestrel looked down at her stomach. She wasn't sure whether to call that an insult or a complement…

Akatsuki looked down at Kestrel. Well more specifically at Kestrel's belly, where her head had been resting not two minutes ago. "O-oh I, um…"

"We though she could use an escort." The white-haired destroyer stated flatly. She seemed to be able to take waking up a lot better than the other destroyers.

"Y-yeah." The meeker of the two brunettes agreed shakily. "I-I mean, she looked so lonely and we didn't want her to spend the night alone."

"Exactly!" Akatsuki chimed in, latching onto the mentality of her fellows. "I mean what kind of proper lady would I be if I _didn't_ offer to escort a lonely carrier?"

Tenryuu sighed, her hand settling over her eyepatch. Kestrel on the other hand gave a small chuckle as the Destroyers gave their reasons for why they'd crawled into bed with her. It was actually kind of touching that they cared so much.

"Girls, it's great that you wanna help make Kestrel feel more at home, really it is…" Tenryuu said. "…but you could've, y'know, asked her first before doing it."

"We wanted to…" Akatsuki started.

"But she was already asleep when we got here." The other brunette added.

"And we didn't want to wake her up." The white-haired one finished.

Tenryuu sighed again. Those frickin' kids…bless them, their hearts were in the right place, and nobody had gotten hurt of anything, but she was going to have to make them understand that they couldn't go crawling into other peoples' beds without permission while they were asleep.

"Okay well, let's get you girls washed up before breakfast." She said, nodding towards the door. "Come on, let's go, you've got anti-submarine drills at eight!"

As the destroyers got up and shuffled off to get ready for their day, Kestrel was finally able to sit up and stretch. After a long night of rest and waking up under a destroyer pile, there was few stiff muscles that she'd need to loosen up before doing launch drills.

Maybe she'd grab a quick bite to eat before heading out to whatever passed as a practice range around here. Just to top up her food stores, nothing major.

Then she could practice launches to her hearts content. She already had a few ideas on how to shorten the time spent reloading and refueling her fighters. She _was_ likely going to be heading back into combat at some point, and she needed to be ready.

So first, it was off to the mess hall-

Nope, scratch that. First, it was getting dressed, _then_ it was off to the mess hall for a quick breakfast. Kestrel quickly changed back into her uniform, taking a few moments to adjust things here and there until it was just right before she headed off to breakfast.

 _Wonder what they served here for breakfast?_

-[]-[]-[]-

Goto was back in the office shortly after the sun had come up, getting down to business sorting through the various bits of paperwork he'd left unfinished last night. There were some new ones too, likely having been left on his desk during the night.

If he didn't know any better he'd swear the papers were multiplying.

Right now, however, he was trying to plug a new hole in his shipgirl lineup. He'd already sent an order down to Sasebo reassigning Kaga to Yokosuka. He was going to try and pair up Kestrel with Kaga. He didn't see any problems stemming from their personalities, Kestrel seemed professional enough to not test Kaga's patience, though he was still on the fence about what he could do to get Kestrels cooperation.

Still, if worse came to worse, one active carrier on the roster was better than no carrier.

Maybe he should check up on Akagi and Zuikaku to see how the repairs were coming...

He sighed through his nose before turning his attention back to the paperwork on his desk. He had to get this done in the morning before that conference call.

Oh yes, he'd almost forgotten about that. He'd asked for a meeting with the other admirals of the worlds navies. A lot of it was going to be situation reports and how the various theatres of war were doing, but he wanted to reveal the new carrier's existence and get some advice on how he could more effectively deploy her.

…

Maybe he should just bite the bullet and talk to her instead of overthinking this. Kestrel was nice enough, professional, and a war veteran. He should be able to get her to listen to reason if he played his cards right. 

-[]-[]-[]-

If Kestrel had turned heads with the first meal she'd grabbed at Yokosuka, the one she'd just eaten had left most other shipgirls in the room in complete confusion. Among the befuddled was Fubuki, who was honestly having a hard time piecing together what she'd just witnessed. She hadn't _seen_ the fateful assault upon the mess hall that had been Kestrel's appetite yesterday, but she'd heard some stories from Yuudachi who had actually been there.

When the supercarrier had walked into the mess hall, Fubuki had expected her to load up a plate with as much food as it could hope to carry and then load up three more before finding a spot to eat. Instead Kestrel had simply grabbed a portion more fit for a destroyer than a full carrier, eaten it, and then left the mess hall.

So now Fubuki, like most of the other shipgirls who'd seen it happen, was left wondering _why_ the largest carrier on base had eaten less than a cruiser. Was it maybe guilt? That she felt she'd imposed on the Yokosuka mess hall and had intentionally limited her portion? Or maybe it was something else?

So, with her interest thoroughly piqued, Fubuki hurriedly finished her breakfast and got up to follow after the carrier.

"Fubuki?" Yuudachi called after her. "Where're you going, poi~?!"

"I just need to check on something!" The destroyer hastily replied, making a beeline for the doors. "I'll be back soon!"

"Okay, but don't forget we got anti-submarine drills, poi~!"

Fubuki made it out of the mess hall, only to find a lack of a carrier outside. It had taken Fubuki maybe 30 seconds to finish up and leave the mess hall, how is it that Kestrel had managed to vanish like that? She wasn't exactly small or destroyer-sized.

So where had she gone?

The special-type destroyer set out to find her, heading first to the carrier barracks. She found Kestrels room if the unmade bed was any indication. She briefly considered fixing it up for Kestrel but decided she had more pressing issues to worry about.

She then headed to the repair docks, wondering if maybe Kestrel would be running maintenance or even repairing minor battle damage. She had come under attack from Abyssal planes after all. Unfortunately, all she found was a sleeping Akagi-sempai and Zuikaku blowing bubbles in the water out of sheer boredom.

So Fubuki went to the archery range, looking to see if Kestrel was going to be practicing her plane launches. It was empty, no one was here other than the destroyer, and there weren't even any targets set up on the water.

Fubuki sighed, she didn't know where else she could look. Kestrel had simply vanished, and 8:00 am was rapidly approaching. She'd need to head to the docks for anti-submarine drills.

When Fubuki arrived at the docks, she noticed something out there on the water. It was Kestrel, standing in the middle of the bay in full rigging. Her massive flight deck was raised and locked in the ready position, her hand gripping at the trigger of her forward catapults. The carrier slotted a plane into position as steam began to billow out of the channel at the front of her flight deck.

The destroyer watched as the tiny plane suddenly rocketed off the carrier's bow with a loud _WHOOSH_ before it pitched upwards and climbed into the sky. Without missing a beat, Kestrel quickly snatched another off her elevators and loaded it onto her catapults and readied a second launch.

Meanwhile, Fubuki could see tiny faery crews shuffling about on her flight deck, two more fighters taxiing into position for their own launches. The little crewmembers, with their color-coded uniforms, scurried around the fighters with expert precision, and the sudden addition of a helicopter on deck did little to disrupt their workflow.

Huh, Fubuki'd never seen a carrier actually manifest her faeries for carrier launches before. Though if she looked at how Kestrel's rigging was set up it made a lot of sense. The carrier was delegating her workload, she'd launch some of her planes while her crews prepped and launched the others.

It was actually pretty ingenious.

Just as two more planes fired off of Kestrel's flight deck the carrier turned towards the destroyer. Fubuki blinked, and then blushed bright red when she realised she'd been _staring_ at the carrier for the past five minutes. _Bad Fubuki! Bad, bad Fubuki!_

She hurriedly looked away, figuring it might be best to let the carrier practice undisturbed. She was about to go find a secluded spot to wait when Kestrels voice carried in from the water. "Hey! What're you doing over there?"

Fubuki froze. _No! Nononononono! This is bad, this is really bad! She was staring, she shouldn't have been staring!_

She turned to see the carrier smiling at her as her crew guided the last fighter onto the catapult and prepped it for launch. Fubuki mulled over her options in her head. What could she say? What should she say?! She _should_ apologize for staring. Yes, apologize and then leave, you've already overstepped your bounds!

"I-I'm sorry for bothering you!" Fubuki called back over the water, giving the carrier a respectful bow. "I shouldn't have been staring! I'm sorry!"

She wasn't expecting the carrier to chuckle in response. "Relax kiddo!" Kestrel replied, pausing only when the last fighter was hurled off the deck and into the air. "You weren't bothering me much anyway. I was just getting a little practice in."

"O-Okay." Fubuki stammered. "I-I'm still sorry for disturbing you."

A short pause passed between the two. "What's your name?"

"F-Fubuki desu!" Replied the destroyer, instinctively snapping to parade rest.

"Fubuki…" Kestrel repeated. "You're a destroyer, right?"

"Hai!" She said with a nod.

"Didn't I hear Tenryuu saying something about anti-submarine practice or something? You gotta be there for that?"

"It's actually supposed to be…here." Fubuki admitted, shifting in place nervously. "I'm just the first to arrive apparently."

Kestrel's eyebrows shot up. "Oh crap." She said, looking up to reacquire her planes as they flew overhead. "Should I move or…get out? How does this work?"

"Nonono!" Fubuki frantically waved her arms in what she _hoped_ was a placating gesture. "It's not for another ten minutes by my clocks!"

"Yeah but I don't wanna get in your training space." Kestrel countered as her crews started packing up the helicopter to bring it back into her hangar. Fubuki felt her face flush hot. First she'd interrupted Kestrel while she was practicing and _now_ she was imposing on a _carrier?_ What was _wrong_ with her?!

"NO!" Fubuki shouted, causing Kestrel to flinch in surprise. Even the little faeries on her flight deck had paused and turned towards the special-type destroyer. She was suddenly feeling _really_ self-conscious with so many eyes locked on her. "I-I mean, you don't have to get out… w-we can probably work around you or-."

Fubuki was interrupted by the footfalls of a certain cruiser and the giddy chattering of a gaggle of destroyers. Kashima-Sensei walked up to edge of the pier, stopping when she laid eyes on Kestrel and Fubuki in the middle of their conversation.

"A-ah! Kashima-Sensei!" Fubuki yelped. She snapped to attention fast enough that Kestrel momentary contemplated doing the same.

"Well hello Fubuki-chan!" Kashima responded. "Are you ready for practice today?"

"Hai!"

"You the one training the destroyers?" Kestrel asked the smiling cruiser.

"Why yes!" Kashima responded. "You must be the new carrier, correct? I see you're getting some practice in yourself!"

Kestrel shrugged, heading towards the docks to get out of the water. "Well I was going to. Then I found out that you and your little troupe need this stretch of water. I'll get out of your way and let you girls get to it."

Kashima's smile vanished quickly as she brought a finger to her chin. "Oh no no no, this won't do at all." She muttered to herself, barely loud enough for Kestrel to catch it.

That caused the carrier to stop in her tracks. "Come again?"

A small smile spread over Kashima's face as her hand dropped to her side. "I believe I have a way for us all to get our practice in..."

Kestrel blinked, her crew going to action stations while she stared back at the cruiser. "Why don't I like that look in your eye?" 

-[]-[]-[]-

"You know…" Murakumo began. "I think I can see why you think the Admiral would complain about us doing this…"

"I'm complaining about this!" Kestrel growled from her spot in the middle of a small group of six destroyers.

"Relax." Hibiki said flatly. "They're only practice paint torpedoes. They won't sink you."

"That supposed to make me feel any better?" Kestrel replied, her head whipping around to stare at the white-haired destroyer. "Call me crazy, but I don't think that paint comes out of your clothes easily!"

"That's what you're worried about?!" Ikazuchi asked incredulously. Of all the things to be worried about in training…and Kestrel was freaking out over her clothes.

"This is all I have to wear." The carrier stated. "I'd rather not be walking around the base covered in paint or in my skivvies, thank you very much!"

"Alright everyone! Please settle down." Kashima's kind yet commanding voice sounded over the budding argument.

Fubuki, in the silence that followed, kept her gaze trained on the fuming supercarrier at the middle of the pack. She was…re-evaluating what she thought about the carrier. Unlike a lot of the American shipgirls she'd had the pleasure of meeting, who were very brash and loud, Kestrel had come off as more subdued and kind in the short conversation Fubuki had with her.

Apparently, that all went away when somebody managed to get on Kestrel's bad side. When Kestrel got angry, she became much more animated. When Kestrel had been "voluntold", as the Carrier had put it, to be a part of todays anti-submarine drills, she'd barely stood still. She'd launched into a tirade of how she couldn't participate in the exercise because she had no practice torps for her Sea Goblin helicopter.

Speaking of the exercise, what had once been a fairly standard anti-sub practice exercise had been ditched in favor of a…mini-wargames exercise let's call it. The Six destroyers participating had been corralled into a small picket fleet around Kestrel, and the four Subgirls had been prepped and were standing on the water further out into the bay. Everyone was equipped with paint-based weapons. Paint shells for their guns, paint torpedoes and paint depth charges.

Except Kestrel, who only had live ammo.

And since nobody was sure if the practice weapons in storage were compatible with the carrier, that meant she was stuck on weapons-safe for the duration of this entire thing.

The objective of this exercise? Protect Kestrel and either force the subs to retreat or "sink" them. The subs' job was to "sink" Kestrel. When Kasima had announced this, it hadn't helped the Carrier's disposition any. Fubuki couldn't confirm this, but she swore she saw Kestrel shudder slightly.

"Now class." Kashima began, drawing a low growl from Kestrel that was promptly ignored. The Training Cruiser stood on the shore nearby, holding a whistle at chest level. "You are all aware of the objectives yes?"

"HAI!" The Destroyers chorused. Kestrel only grumbled in response.

"Fantastic! Then let us begin!" Kashima raised the whistle to her lips and blew a shrill note, signalling that the exercise had begun.

The small fleet started moving as the Subgirls on the water dove under the waves, likely splitting up to come at them from different angles. Fubuki and the other destroyers all settled into a leisurely pace as they steamed out into the water towards the northwest, deeper into Tokyo bay. Kestrel seeming to easily keep pace with them, running at a solid 25 knots without breaking a sweat. Heads turned towards the carrier as the sound of rotors spinning up emanated from her deck.

A small grey helicopter lifted off, climbing up to a holding altitude high above the carrier. "Alright, I'm launching Sea Goblin." Kestrel stated to the destroyers. "I'm gonna be dropping sonobuoys in support. If I get a hit on a sub, I'll call it out alright?"

"HAI!"

Kestrel let out a sigh. "Alright, then let's get this done."

And so Fubuki quickly fell into her standard submarine search pattern, eyes scanning the water for any sight of a periscope breaking the surface and her sonar pinging everything below her. Kestel's helicopter remained high above the unit, dropping Sonobuoys as it went. The small fleet zig-zagged to make it more difficult for the subs to get a good firing line. Initially the destroyers held back on their manoevers, trying to keep in formation with the much heavier carrier, but Kestrel proved to be surprisingly nimble despite her tonnage.

"Inazuma, positive subsurface sonar contact, 8 km north on bearing zero-one-three." Kestrel suddenly said, startling Fubuki out of her rhythm. "Go get it."

Inazuma looked confused for a moment before breaking off from the formation towards the area Kestrel called out. Soon enough, the Akatsuki-class destroyer was tossing depth charges into the water and a paint covered Nimu surfaced shortly thereafter, who nonetheless steamed back towards the docks with a cheerful grin on her face. She was out of the fight.

That left three more subs out there somewhere.

The formation was nearing the edge of the detection range for Kestrel's sonobuoy and while there were others in the water they were back near the mouth of the bay. As such, Kestrel's helicopter moved out towards the front of the pack to drop a new one, and that's when Fubuki's own sonar picked up a contact on her starboard.

The sub was trying to make a break for it, but Fubuki was much faster and in moments she dumped her depth charges right on top of the sub. Moments later a paint covered Imuya surfaced and began steaming back towards the docks. Two for two now.

Of course, now the fleet was outside the range of the Sonobuoy coverage, and Kestrel hadn't yet set another one down to cover them. The subs had been waiting for that apparently, and with both Fubuki and Inazuma broken away of the pack, Kestrel's escort was reduced.

So when Murakumo called out "Periscope! Fifty-degrees to port!" Fubuki's boilers jumpped into the red for a split second.

"Torpedo spotted!" Kestrel shouted, her voice cracking slightly as she turned hard into the attack, the torpedo swimming past her starboard side. "Missed! Somebody go get that sub!"

"On it!" Murakumo shouted back, changing course and pushing to flank speed to chase after the submarine.

It was then that Fubuki spotted a shape gliding through the water. Her sonar wasn't picking anything up, and it was too small to be a submarine. It was also heading right for the carrier. "Kestrel!" She shouted in warning.

It came too late. The torpedo struck kestrel amidships, sending a geyser of paint and seawater all over the ship girl. Kestrel didn't scream, only screwing her eyes shut as she was drenched in bright pink paint. Goya surfaced a moment later, free of marking paint, giggling as she caught sight of her handiwork.

"SON OF A BITCH!" Kestrel shrieked in rage as she looked over her ruined uniform, drowning out Kashima's whistle. "NOW I GOTTA WASH THIS THING! YOU KNOW PAINT DOESN'T COME OUT!" Her eyes locked onto Goya, narrowing into predatory slits. Goya's giggles stopped as the Carrier angled her bow and piled on the speed.

"...uh oh." Was the last thing the sub said before turning around and steaming as fast as she could in the other direction, screaming for all the world in sheer terror as the massive carrier chased after her.

"YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY HUH? C'MERE YA LITTLE SHIT! LET'S SEE HOW YOU LIKE IT WHEN I CRACK OPEN ONE OF THOSE TORPEDOES ON _YOUR_ HULL! DON'T RUN! DON'T RUN! I WANNA BE YOUR FRIEND!"

Fubuki watched the ensuing chase alongside the last of the subgirls to remain in the water, Shioi, who pulled up alongside the Destroyer not too long after Kestrel had steamed past.

"This…may have been a mistake." Shioi commented as Kestrel and Goya settled into a surreal game of whack-a-sub out in the middle of the bay. Looking at the enraged carrier and the terrified submarine, Fubuki couldn't help but agree.


	6. Chapter 6 : Politick

Goto sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he stared at the shipgirls assembled before him. He'd long since grown accustomed to their…energy you could call it, but it never made it any less taxing dealing with the resulting fallout.

"So…" He began, straightening as the destroyers and subs fidgeted nervously in place. "Somebody mind explaining to me why everyone is covered in paint?"

Standing before him was the entire training group for this morning's ASW drills, with the surprise addition of Kestrel standing front and center alongside Kashima, who herself hadn't been spared from the multi-colored carnage.

"Well, you see Admiral…"Kashima began, obviously not quite sure how to explain this. "The destroyers and submarines were going through the drills when-."

"Kestrel got hit by Goya's torpedo and it all went downhill from there." Shioi _helpfully_ stated.

Goto turned his attention to the newest arrival to Yokosuka, a raised eyebrow the only prompting her gave the Carrier who was outright _drenched_ in multicolored paint.

Kestrel stood at attention, hands clasped behind her back. "I let my temper get the best of me sir. Won't happen again."

Goto had the sneaking suspicion that it was more than just the carrier's temper in play here. Probably had to do with how she was sunk by a sub combined with getting covered in paint.

Still that left Goya, who was staring wide eyed off into the space ahead of her. "Dare I ask what happened to Goya?" Goto asked.

"Uhhh…" Kestrel fidgeted in place.

"Goya launched one of her torpedoes at Kestrel in self defense, Kestrel threw it back at her." Once again Shioi was supplying the information.

"So awesome…" Whispered Goya, never taking her eyes off of…whatever the hell she was staring at.

Goto nodded, figuring it was best not to question just _how_ the carrier managed to pull that off. "And everyone else getting covered in paint is because…?"

All hands immediately pointed to Ikazuchi, who only fixed everyone with bewildered looks. "What'd I do?!"

Oh, you know _exactly_ what you did!" Murakumo growled.

"She declared a paint war and started throwing depth charges at everybody." Hibiki stated flatly.

Ikazuchi only stood there sheepishly poking her fingers together. " 'm sorry…" She muttered, looking off to the side.

Goto once again sighed. He _should_ punish them, and he was certain that he would've if it had been any Navy serviceman. But Ikazuchi looked apologetic enough and Kestrel looked downright miserable in all that paint. Not to mention that there hadn't been any damage inflicted that couldn't be fixed with a liberal application of soap and water. Besides, he couldn't officially punish Kestrel until she joined the JMSDF.

Speaking of, he'd need to be at that admirals meeting in a few minutes. "Alright then, all of you get cleaned up and put the training equipment back where you found it. Kashima, I want a performance report on my desk by 1600."

"HAI!" The Japanese kanmusu chorused while Kestrel responded with a clear and giant "Yes Sir!"

"Dismissed." He said. The Shipgirls promptly saluted and left for the showers, likely to get the paint out of their hair.

"Going a little easy on them, aren't we?" A sultry voice asked from behind.

"Mutsu." He greeted as the battleship came to stand next to him. She watched the retreating forms of the other painted shipgirls for a few minutes. "She's certainly interesting."

"Who?" Goto asked, giving Mutsu a sidelong glance.

"Kestrel." She replied. "She shows up in the middle of a battle and saves a good portion of the fleet, has an existential meltdown on the way to Yokosuka, then in a few hours she bounces back. The next day you find her playing with the destroyers during ASW drills." Mutsu turned to Goto. "She'll definitely be an interesting addition to the fleet."

"She's not part of the fleet yet." Goto pointed out.

Mutsu tilted her head to one side. "You mean you haven't asked her yet?"

"No, I'm waiting until after the meeting to ask her." Goto admitted. "I want to know what I could be getting myself into. The Americans have experience with the nuclear carriers. I'm going to ask Williams for his insight into how I could best employ her."

"I still don't see why you need to wait to ask her."

Goto hummed, trying to think of the best way to reply to that. "To tell you the truth, I'm not sure if she'd want to join the fleet. Most of the girls that've come back have jumped at the chance to serve their country again. Their countries needed them, and they answered the call. _You_ answered the call." He paused. "Kestrel…doesn't have that. Her homeland isn't on any map, nor is it a recognized nation-state here. She may not want to sign up with the JMSDF."

Mutsu was silent for a while, biting her cheek as she processed what her admiral had just said. "Sounds more like you're putting off asking her because you're afraid she'll say no." She said, giving him a playful smile. "Worse comes to worse and she doesn't sign up, we can always offer her a friendly port to come back to. It's the least we can do after what she did."

Mutsu turned back towards where she came. She got a few paces away form Goto before stopping and turning to him. "Also, I believe that meeting is starting in few minutes?"

Goto smirked. "I thought Nagato was the Secretary Ship here?"

Mutsu shrugged. "My sister can't be everywhere at once. I'm just doing my part to keep her workload down." 

-[]-[]-[]-

Kestrel stared at the bottle in her hands, reading the label as she looked back up at the paint colored clothes hanging on a succession of clotheslines in front of her. She and the rest of the shipgirls from this morning's practice had just gotten back from the showers, having successfully managed to get the paint off their skin and out of their hair. Now most of them were dressed in their casual clothes with Kestrel wearing the clothes she'd "borrowed" from Kongou.

Now they were going to get the paint off of their clothes. Which is why Kestrel was confused as to why she was holding the bottle she'd gotten from Kashima as the cruiser started dragging a collection of garden hoses out, removing the attachments as she went.

"Kashima…this is window cleaner…" Kestrel stated flatly, looking at the label again to make sure she hadn't misread it.

"Well…yes and no." The Cruiser replied as she dropped the hoses on the ground, the destroyers who were helping get the clothes clean rushing over to grab a hose and attach it to the spray nozzles on their own bottles. "We've emptied out the window cleaner and replaced it with laundry detergent. We just didn't take the labels off the bottles."

"…and _why_ aren't we running our clothes through the wash like normal people?" Kestrel asked, grabbing her own hose.

"We used to." Kashima attached her own hose to a bottle and started heading over to the clotheslines. "But after a while the machines started to break down with so much paint residue clogging up their systems. We had to replace or repair a lot of them so we started to use this method to deal with paint since its faster than washing them all by hand."

Kestrel wanted to refute that, but couldn't find the words. Considering that there was a battleship on base that was capable of moving at speeds upwards of Mach 2 when she felt like it, it was probably best not to question this. "Okay I'll buy that." Kestrel said with a shrug attaching her own hose to the bottle in her hands.

After everyone had taken to their positions, Kashima signalled Murakumo to turn on the hoses. Soon enough, seven jets of soapy water started hosing down the clothes on the lines, paint starting to drip down onto the gravel underneath.

Kestrel had to admit, even though this was a very unconventional way to wash one's clothes, it was certainly effective. Soon she could chuck her uniform in the dryer and final get out of these clothes. These shorts did not fit right at all. 

-[]-[]-[]-

Goto stood in Yokosuka's communications room. Multiple large screens coated the wall in front of him, and Nagato stood off to his side, as professionally stoic as ever. He watched as techs worked to secure the connections to the major players in the Abyssal War. Soon, one by one screens started winking to life as connections were established until all the screens were filled.

Goto gazed at each screen, one after the other, reading the names of the other admirals as well as their accompanying shipgirls and the countries they represented. Admiral Martha Higgs of the Royal Navy with HMS Warspite beside her. Admiral John Proulx of the Royal Canadian Navy with HMCS Ontario. Admiral Francois Joubert of the French Marine Nationale with Richelieu. Admiral Yurgen Lieberenz of Germany's Deutsche Marine with Bismarck. Admiral Georgio Petri of Italy's Marina Militare with Vittorio Veneto. Vice Admiral Daniel Williams of the US Navy with USS Saratoga. And finally, there was Admiral Georgy Voronin of the Russian Navy with the Battleship Marat of all people.

"Well seeing as how we're all here, let's get this started." Williams stated, calling the meeting to order. "Georgio, why don't you start us off?"

The Italian Admiral cleared his throat. "Not much change on our end, we've managed to keep the Abyssals out of the Mediterranean for the most part. We've been largely engaged in hunting down the subs that do make it through our blockade near the Straight of Gibraltar. We've keeping our eyes open for any sign of installation types appearing near the interior islands, but so far we've seen nothing."

"The French and British fleets in the area report the same thing." Added Admiral Higgs, earning a quick nod form her French counterpart. Beyond that our navy have been largely successful in hunting Abyssal wolfpack alongside our French and German counterparts in combined fleet patrols. We also recently intercepted a raiding flotilla trying to transit the English Channel. Beyond that there's not much to report." Both French and German Admiral agreed with Admiral Higgs' report.

"Moving on." Williams said. "Proulx. What's the story with the RCN?"

"Still covering your norther seas for you, Williams. Mostly sub hunting and acting in support of American steel-hulls. Other than a sharp uptake in Abyssal activity on the West Coast, not much to report beyond the usual."

"The Russian Navy has been doing its best to keep the sea lanes open in the Bering Sea and north pacific, but we've also been seeing a lot more activity in the past few weeks, especially sub packs" Admiral Voronin reported.

"America's Shipgirl fleets are still under construction." Williams stated, taking the time to make his own report. "We've gotten a few more destroyers, the cruisers Atlanta, Baltimore and Nashville and the carrier USS Yorktown CV-5. We've been constructing more summoning chambers and diverting more resources to the summoning process. Hopefully we can increase the rate at which we get new shipgirls."

"So that leaves only one front remaining." Voronin stated. "Goto? What do you have for us?"

Goto took a deep breath to steady himself. Ironically, he was never good a public speaking. "We've been noticing an uptake in Abyssal activity as well over the past week. Unfortunately, it didn't stop there. Yesterday our fleets engaged and defeated a large Abyssal combined fleet that was on course to attack Yokosuka harbour."

"A combined fleet?" Admiral Joubert repeated. "Please tell me you're joking."

"I'm not, our own forces sustained heavy damage, though thankfully none of our girls were sunk." Goto replied. "Which brings me to my second piece of news. We have a new shipgirl at Yokosuka."

That resulted in a few raised eyebrows. "Correct me if I'm wrong Goto…but hasn't Japan managed to bring back all of its World War 2 era vessels?" Asked Voronin.

"That is correct."

"Then who is she? Does Japan have a modern warship in its fleet now?" Asked Admiral Lieberenz.

"Yes and no." Goto replied. "She is a modern vessel, though I will admit that she isn't one of ours."

"Well don't keep us in suspense…" Biggs said, a slight grin on her face. "Out with it man, who is she?"

"That's difficult to explain." Goto admitted. "How many of you are familiar with Multiverse Theory."

At that, the room went silent. The shocked expressions of the other admirals displayed clear as day on the screens. It was broken only when Admiral Joubert shook his head and said: "Once again, Goto, I must ask if you're joking."

"He isn't." Nagato stated, coming to her admiral's defense. "Her name is OFS Kestrel of the Osean Maritime Defense Forces, and she is a Nimitz-Class carrier in all but name."

Williams leaned in closer to the screen, his face becoming hard. "Say again Nagato, did you say a Nimitz?"

"Yes, sir. She calls herself a Hubert Class, but functionally she appears to be a Nimitz." Nagato clarified.

"Well damn, now Japan has a Supercarrier." Proulx stated with a grin. "I'm gettin' jealous."

"We're all jealous, I think." Said Petri.

"Not quite." Goto interjected. "We've yet to formally induct her into the JMSDF, though she is already on base."

"Can I make a bid?" Asked Proulx.

"No, you can't. This is Goto's decision. She's on his base, she's his responsibility." Willaims stated.

"Aw."

"Actually, I'd say its more Ketrel's decision." Goto said with a shrug. "She has no country to call her own. He homeland, Osea, is not on any of our maps. As far as I'm concerned, who she serves with is up to her."

"So does that mean I can still make that bid?"

Goto gave Proulx a smirk. "I'll bring it to her attention." Proulx just smiled in response.

"So what's her loadout? Crusaders? Phantoms? Tomcats?" Williams asked.

"Tomcats, four of them plus one helicopter." Goto stated. "It's not a lot, but that's what she has and she doesn't appear to be able to increase that number for the time being."

"You're right, that isn't much at all." Lieberenz pointed out. "Four planes on a ship the size of a Nimitz is extremely limiting."

"That's true." The softy, heavenly voice of Warspite flowed through the speakers. "Though on the other hand, they _are_ jets, and some fairly advanced ones as well. I'll admit that I'm not much of an expert in American Naval Aviation, but I'm willing to bet that those planes are worth ten Wildcats at least."

"It gets even better when you consider their pilots." Goto said, drawing another round of raised eyebrows. "They're Aces with an incredible record. They proved themselves in that battle with the Abyssal Combined Fleet, it's how we found Kestrel. She dictated that fight and her timely arrival prevented significant casualties. If her performance there was any indication, we back her up with an escort she can still be a potent force multiplier."

"Which brings the question of who she's going to serve with back to the fore." Said Joubert.

Goto nodded in agreement. "I'll ask her and get back to you with her answer."

"Good." Willaims said with a nod. "On that note, if there's nothing else to report this meeting is concluded."


	7. Chapter 7 : Decisions Decisions

A lone Osean carrier stirred in her bed, blinking away her blurry vision as she awoke. Kestrel felt slightly stiff having crashed onto her bed once she'd gotten some chow in her and took a shower. This morning there wasn't the weight of a gaggle of destroyers on top of her stomach. She had to admit though, she was a bit disappointed to not have them around. Then again, her bed wasn't big enough for five people.

Kestrel was still stuck wearing the clothes borrowed from Kongou, and while she liked the bagginess of the shirt the shorts were…uncomfortable to say the least. Maybe she should buy her own change of clothes at her first opportunity?

With what money though? She was entirely broke!

That was a problem. How was she supposed to pay for her food? Yeah Yokosuka was letting her eat free for now but she didn't want to keep taking advantage like this! But what could she realistically do?

Well she could enlist with the Japanese Navy and get on their payroll, that was an option. And the best part was that her meals would be free, and coming out of combat she would likely need all the food she could get her hands on. That and she was already on one of their bases, so that made it relatively convenient.

But she was still and Osean carrier, not a Japanese one. While she had effectively betrayed her country and gone rogue before she was sunk, there was some part of her that balked at the idea of joining up with another navy. What if she found a way home? She doubted the Japanese would bee willing to part with her so easily.

Maybe she should think on this more after breakfast or something, or maybe go to Admiral Goto about this? No, he'd probably try and sway her decision in his favor, and right now she wanted someone who was more of a third party.

She got out of bed and quickly donned her now clean uniform and stepped out of her room. She wasn't alone in the hallway as she saw a cheerful looking cruiser bouncing down the hallway. Or well, her upper works were bouncing under the blue jacket she was wearing.

Seriously, did all Japanese Shipgirls have such massive stacks or was it just hers that were unusually small?

Or maybe it was just her lack of actual stacks because, y'know, reactors. That might've had something to do with it. Was that even how this worked or was she getting lost in this analogy? _Okay stoppit Kestrel, FOCUS!_

"Pan-paka-pan~!" The cruiser sang, throwing one hand up in the air in an energetic wave. "You must be Kestrel, yes?"

Kestrel blinked at the cruisers cheery disposition. "Uh, yeah, that's me."

"Great! I'm Heavy Cruiser Atago! It's nice to meet you!" The cruiser said cheerily with a giggle. "I was just coming to tell you that Admiral Goto wants to see you. Said it was about you staying on base."

Kestrel groaned. That was the conversation she was hoping to avoid until she came up with an idea of how she was going to proceed. "Did he say at all what about specifically?"

"Hmmm. No, I don't think he did." Atago said, her cheerful smile never leaving her face. "But don't worry, I don't think he'd force you to leave if that's what you're worried about!"

Kestrel sighed. No she wasn't worried about getting kicked off base. She was worried about being asked to pay for food with money she didn't have and getting roped into the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force to pay off her debts. She didn't think Goto was the type of man to pull something like that but she only knew him for two days at most. Probably not even that, actually.

Might also be lingering paranoia brought about by the Grey Men infiltrating Osea talking. She had no real idea.

"Yeah, okay I'll get over there." Kestrel said with a nod and smile that she hoped covered up the fact that she wasn't looking forward to this at all. "Well time to face the music!"

"Great!" Atago cheered. "I'll go with you since the Admiral also wanted to talk to me about an assignment."

Kestrel smiled as Atago fell in step beside her as the two made their way to Admiral Goto's office. Maybe with the cheerful aura that Atago radiated the meeting wouldn't go over so bad. 

-[]-[]-[]-

Kestrel and Atago were walking down the hall to Admiral Goto's office, with the busty cruiser humming a chipper tune as they went. Kestrel, in the time it took to get here, had decided that whatever happened in that office, she would bite the bullet and deal with whatever came her way. So now her face had hardened into an impassable mask of determination. She _would_ get through this, and she _would_ figure out a way to pay off her debts to Japan!

Of course, all that termination went out the window the minute the two heard the telltale sounds of feet thudding against the floor as a certain battleship came charging towards Admiral Goto's office. Any doubts were shattered the minute Kongou uttered the cry of: "TEEEIIII-TOOOO-KUUUUU!"

Now, Atago had spent quite a while on Yokosuka Naval Base, she'd come back almost a year and a half ago and was just in time to see the onset of Kongou's 'infatuation' with Admiral Goto. Thus she had the good sense to get out of the battleship's way.

Kestrel, by comparison, only had two full days on base under her belt and, of course, didn't know what this meant. So instead of stepping off to the side and giving Kongou her space, Kestrel instead turned around to see what all to commotion was.

Mistake.

Kongou slammed into Kestrel with all the force of a Battleship-Class Shipgirl travelling at flank, her head impacting the carrier's ribs. Kestrel was knocked onto her back with Kongou landing on top of her as their combined momentum slid them across the floor. Goto's office door served no purpose ins slowing either of them down as their heads crashed straight through, splintering and snapping the wood and tossing the lower part of the door flying into the front of Goto's desk.

Goto buried his face in his hands, exasperated but not at all surprised that this had happened. He'd been dealing with shipgirls for long enough that this had become the norm. Didn't make it any less infuriating having to deal with it.

"Aw, come on!" Akashi shouted, throwing her arms up in the air in frustration. "I just replaced that door!"

"I'm okay!" Kongou mumbled into Kestrels chest as the supercarrier groaned from the impact of a battleship that didn't seem to fully follow the laws of physics.

"Good morning to you too Kongou…" Said Kestrel. "Now would you mind getting the hell-"

Kongou cut Kestrrel off by _somehow_ managing to fling herself from a face down position, into a flying, spinning cannonball directly at Goto while simultaneously shouting: "BURNING LOVE!"

Goto, with cat-like reflexes built by literal years under his belt as a shipgirl admiral, merely ducked beneath his desk and let the excitable battleship go flying past over his head and smash through the window behind him. Kongou hit the ground outside with a mighty _thud_ and a ample dust cloud.

"I'm still okay!" She said after recovering from the two-storey drop to the ground.

Kestrel, still lying underneath the door, was having a hard time figuring out just what the hell happened. After a few seconds of trying and failing to figure out the how, what and why, she merely stated: "Y'know, I'm just going to delete this from my memory and pretend it never happened."

"That would likely be for the best, yes." Nagato, who Kestrel just noticed was also in the room, said as she massaged her temples.

Kestrel reached up and turned the doorknob, opening the door and allowing herself to get up. "I'll take it this happens often?" She asked as she dusted herself off. She didn't bother trying to put her game face back on, figuring that the surprise tackling by Kongou had ruined any effect it might have had.

"You have no idea how often I was admitted to the hospital until I figured out how to duck in this chair." Goto replied, straightening in his seat.

Kestrel winced. "I am so sorry."

"Don't be." He reassured with a dismissive wave. "If I couldn't handle it I wouldn't be sitting in this chair."

"Right, should've figured." Kestrel said before clearing and standing at attention. "You wanted to see me sir?" Taking a quick glance to left and right Kestrel noted there were a few shipgirls she hadn't met before. One was a pink-haired girl with what looked to be a lot of cranes all over her superstructure, and another two who looked like destroyers, and finally a girl with a blue skirt and archery gear who had the flight-deck of a carrier.

"I did Kestrel." Goto stated. "I'll admit, I'm a bit strapped for time, so I'll get right to the chase." Kestrel nodded. "I've spoken to admirals in the other navies committed to fighting the Abyssals. You came up during the meeting, and I made the others aware of your situation." He sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Needless to say, you've gotten quite a few offers of employment."

Kestrel blinked. "Come again, sir?"

"I've gotten offers from Canada, the United States, The European Union." He said. "Looks like everyone's hoping to add a supercarrier to their shipgirl roster."

She chuckled and smiled. "Well I'd be lying if I said I wasn't flattered."

"Indeed." Goto agreed with a nod. "Which is why I called you in." He placed a large manila folder on his desk. "In this folder you'll find every offer I've received over the last few hours, including one of my own." Kestrel picked up the folder and opened it to the first offer from Goto himself. "I'll ask you to look them over and get back to me on your decision by tonight."

"Tonight sir?"

"Tonight." Goto confirmed. "I'm afraid we don't have the luxury of waiting. I need to know if I can count you on the JMSDF roster or if you'll be heading to another nation. You have until 1800 hours to come to a decision. Understood?"

"Uh…understood sir." Kestrel replied hesitantly.

"Is there a problem?"

"No. Not really." Kestrel admitted. "I just thought you'd try to convince me to join the JMSDF instead of giving me a bunch of offers from other people."

"Kestrel, you aren't a Japanese ship so I can't in good consciousness force you into the JMSDF. Not to mention that should any shipgirl appear outside their country of origin that she be returned home. Since we can't do that with Osea, I figure this is the best option."

"Thank you, sir." She held up the folder. "I'll look these over and get back to you tonight." Goto nodded in response. "Will there be anything else sir?"

"No Kestrel, you're dismissed." Goto admitted. "Besides, I have a briefing to go over. If you see Kongou on your way out-."

"I'm here!" Kongou cheered, suddenly appearing next to Kestrel.

"GAH!" Kestrel shrieked. "How the _hell_ do you do that?!"

"Do what?" Kongou asked, looking genuinely confused.

"Keep spoofing my radar like that! Did they give you a stealth coating or something?"

Goto couldn't help but chuckle as Kestrel attempted to get a straight answer out of Kongou, who only seemed to be able to give her half-answers as even she didn't seem to fully understand how she was doing it. Working with shipgirls, while some days taxing, was never truly dull.

"I honestly don't know what you're talking about, dess." Kongou said earnestly, looking slightly worried for Kestrels sanity.

"So you're _sure_ you don't have an electronic warfare suite that I don't know about?" Kestrel asked again.

"No, I'm pretty sure that I don't."

"Then how in the-. Y'know what, screw it. I'm gonna go read over employment offers." Kestrel said, throwing up her arms in frustration. "I'm not gonna question any of this." 

-[]-[]-[]-

Kestrel was now sitting in the mess hall, pouring over the folder of employment offers she'd been given. Admittedly she could've gone anywhere else, but for some reason she'd started thinking of food on her way to find a reading place. So now she was munching on a few carrot sticks while she went over the offers again for the fourth time.

True to Goto's word, there were employment offers from pretty much every country that was participating actively in the Abyssal war. The United States, Russia, Canada, The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and of course, Japan.

She had to admit, a lot of them had some pretty good offers. Most included the promotion to a brevet rank of Lieutenant Commander or its equivalent, though beyond that the offers differed. The United States was essentially offering its considerable resources as a bonus, meaning she wouldn't necessarily need to worry about overstepping her bounds when it came to food and materials. Canada's was much the same.

Russia's offer seemed similar on paper to the United States' admittedly, though she very much wasn't keen on the idea of going to a country that shared many similarities with Yuktobania. Ture she'd served alongside many Yuktobanian ships before after the Battle of the Ceres Ocean, but she still wasn't comfortable with the idea of signing on to their parallel here.

Japan's offer was, on paper, the absolute worst out of all of them. Sure they could boast having, at least currently, the single largest and most experienced Shipgirl fleet afloat but beyond that they couldn't bring much to bear. Not to mention they were pretty much the closest you could get to being in enemy territory and suffered for it with constant attacks. Strangely enough, this one made her list for exactly those reasons.

The last offer was rather peculiar. Britain, France, Germany and Italy had all collectively given Kestrel an offer of employment, essentially allowing her to operate as a free agent under their collective governments, and would stationed in one of the four countries depending on need. It didn't hurt at all that, combined, they fielded the largest fleet available to back her up. The bad points for her was that she'd largely be restricted to the North Atlantic, and from what she'd managed to dig up they typically dealt mostly with submarines and occasional raid from destroyers and cruisers. She wasn't sure exactly sure how useful she could be there.

Kestrel sat back in her seat, gnawing on the carrot stick between her teeth as she mulled over her options. As far as she was concerned, she had only three choices at the moment between the USA, Japan and the European Countries. On the one hand, she _really_ liked the model the Europeans were using in regards to her service as it didn't tie her to one government and essentially meant she was still an Osean carrier acting as a volunteer force.

On the other, she was pretty sure she'd be doing nothing as her own applications to the kind of combat they were facing in the Atlantic were fairly limited. She'd be sitting on her hands for long stretches of time and, as mentioned previously, she wasn't exactly chomping at the bit for that.

She'd much rather be engaged in the Pacific, where there were decidedly more operations undertaken by large fleets against the Abyss. This was the kind of fight that Kestrel was _built_ for. Downside was, she'd have to sign on with either Japan or the United States, and either meant that she wouldn't be an Osean Carrier anymore. That severely rubbed her the wrong way.

She'd disobeyed her country to save it, not because she was leaving it to fend for itself!

Kestrel, having finished her carrot stick, laid her head down on the table with a frustrated grumble. She had to pick between plenty of action, plenty of resources, or remaining an Osean carrier. Out of those three, she had no idea which one to pick.

She sat like that for what must have been an hour, her thoughts going around and around in circles as she tried to figure out just what option to take. She tried going by elimination. She couldn't figure out which one to eliminate first. She tried going by which one she preferred the most and again reached a dead end.

"Hey, fancy running into you here!" Kestrel recognized the voice as Zuikaku's. For a refreshing change of pace, her radar had detected the carrier coming. She just hadn't really cared, figuring they'd just walk by.

Kestrel raised her head to look up at the carrier. Well "up" being the keyword here. Zuikaku…wasn't all that tall, so sitting up in her seat Kestrel could nearly get to eye level with the smaller carrier.

Zuikaku still showed a lot of the damage she'd taken during the fight. Her right hand was bandaged up tightly and held in a sling. Her face was dotted with gauze and medical tape, and she had a patch over her left eye. She wore a set of teal pyjamas and a grey zip-up hoodie instead of her usual uniform. She wasn't yet back to combat ready yet, that much was obvious.

"Hey Zuikaku, thought you'd be at the docks working on those repairs." Kestrel said in greeting.

"You recognize me?" Zuikaku asked, tilting her head in confusion. She was pretty sure that Kestrel hadn't really noticed her when they arrived back at Yokosuka.

"I recognize your voice."

"Even through all the static?"

Kestrel raised an eyebrow at the smaller Armored Carrier. "You guys have a battleship on base that can teleport short distances and break the sound barrier when she so chooses and _that's_ the thing you're questioning?"

Zuikaku gave a chuckle. "So you've met Kongou huh?"

"Pretty sure Kongou met me." Kestrel refuted, rolling her eyes. "I still have no idea what's happened the two times I've seen her in action."

"Yeah, she's like that." Zuikaku said, taking a seat across from Kestrel. "So what are you doing?"

"Figuring out where I'm gonna go after this." She said, flipping through the American offer once again. "Not making much progress there to be honest."

"Huh. I woulda thought Goto would try to bring you into the JMSDF." Zuikaku commented.

"Technically he has tried." Kestrel said, holding up Goto's offer. "In his defence, it's one of the final three choices I've picked. I just can't narrow them down past that."

"What are the others?" Zuikaku asked, prompting Kestrel to slide the three offers she'd picked across the table. Zuikaku took a minute to look them over, and in the meantime Kestrel went back to her plate of carrot sticks. When she was finished reading them over, Zuikaku looked ack up at Kestrel. "So what's the problem?"

Kestrel explained her position of wanting to be in the thick of the action, not have to worry about how much resources she was consuming, and not have to revoke her position as an Osean carrier. "So yeah, that's why I can't really choose." She finished, propping her head up with one arm.

Zuikaku hummed, looking over the three offers in front of her again. "Yeah I could see how that'd be a problem." She admitted. "I mean, it's not like you could just pick all of them, right?"

"Yeah that would-." Kestrel paused. Wait a minute. Why _couldn't_ she pick all of them? As far as she knew there was no real reason she couldn't and Goto hadn't specified she could only pick one. "Zuikaku?"

"Yes?"

"You're a frickin' genius!" Kestrel suddenly leapt from her seat, grabbed the proposals, and bee-lined it for the exit, moving far faster than a ship of her tonnage had any right to. Zuikaku was left staring at the retreating carrier, wondering just what she'd said to have excited Kestrel so much.

"I wonder if all Oseans are like that?" 

-[]-[]-[]-

Goto poured over the current intel the subs on deployment were sending in. Iku'd once again spotted a large Abyssal fleet though based on their heading and the evidence of battle damage, he'd concluded that they were likely the remnants of Kestrel's intervention two days ago.

For some reason though, they hadn't turned right back around deeper into abyssal territory and were instead wandering aimlessly on the open sea. Evidently they felt like they still had the firepower to risk staying out in the open like that.

Or more likely, they were staying there trying to get something out of their ill-fated run at Japan if the replenishment convoy that had just restocked them was any indication. Another thing that helped him come to that conclusion was that they were parked right in the path of one of the sea lanes to America, essentially cutting off that route to any convoys while they were there.

He'd need to dislodge them sooner than later, and for that he'd need carriers. The Abyssal carriers hadn't been spotted throughout the entire battle two days ago, and they were likely still out there somewhere.

That would mean recalling more carriers, either from Sasebo or Kure, or waiting another five to seven days for Zuikaku and Akagi to finish their repairs and rejoin the fleet. Unless his offer managed to convince Kestrel to rejoin the fleet. He had a feeling she was the kind of person that wouldn't really sit still for too long and would be looking for action. Hopefully he'd been right.

Then he heard them. The footsteps. The thundering footsteps of someone running full tilt towards his door. Correction, the footsteps of a _shipgirl_ running _at flank_ towards his door. This would make it the second time Kongou'd tried her Burning Love Tackle on him today. He prepared himself to duck, until he noticed something peculiar about the footsteps.

There was no hollering of "TEITOKU!" as you would hear when dealing with Kongou, and the footsteps themselves sounded way too heavy.

So when the footsteps slowed to a stop just outside his newly repaired door, he found himself confused and more than a little curious. He was still prepping to duck below his desk in case Kongou had decided to change tactics.

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in." He said.

The door opened and Goto tensed.

Kestrel's head poked through the doorway and he relaxed. She was grinning from ear to ear, and looked the happiest he'd seen her since she'd arrived on base.

"Goto, I've made my decision." Kestrel said, opening the door and stepping his office, closing the door behind her.

Goto straightened himself in his chair. She was a good eight hours early, and Goto had his fingers crossed that he'd hear the answer he wanted. "Glad to hear it Kestrel. So who are you signing up with."

"Well sir," Kestrel began, placing the folder down onto his desk. "I'd like to sign on with Japan…"

Goto smiled. "Well that's great to-."

"…and America…" She cut him off. "…and the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Russian and Canada."

Goto blinked. He was silent for a few seconds as he stared incredulously at Kestrel's beaming face. For some reason, what she'd just said had caused his brain to slam on the brakes and take a few seconds chugging along to try and make sense of it. Eventually he came to his senses enough to say: "Come again?"


	8. Chapter 8 : Assignment

Goto, Kestrel and Mutsu walked out of Yokosuka's communications room, the former utterly exhausted after the five-hour-long debate of the exact nature of Kestrel's role in the Abyssal War. Originally Goto had brought Nagato in with him, but when it became apparent that the conference would take far longer than originally intended, he'd sent his secretary ship off to handle the paperwork he knew he wouldn't have the time to finish. She'd sent in Mutsu to take her place.

Say what you will about the second of the Nagato sisters and her flirty personality, but she knew when to act professionally when the situation called for it.

Less surprising was Kestrel's downright chipper expression as she walked out of the room. She had a bounce in her step that Goto assumed couldn't happen to a 100'000 ton carrier girl so far from home with no way back. Then he remembered that Kongou existed and had to revaluate that assumption.

Still, Kestrel had come out of the negotiations with the deal she'd been after. He had no idea where Kestrel had gotten her negotiating chops but now he was sort of regretting not trying to push her more into joining the JMSDF. If anyone watched the history channel and knew Pawn Stars or shows of that calibre, you know the kind of haggling wars they could get into.

It kind of went like that after Kestrel laid out her plan and the Admirals had been forced to get their respective politicians on the line to avoid the international legal hang-ups that could result from it. On every point, she argued even when they threatened throw the proposal out. They needed her and she knew it.

She knew it and milked it for all it was worth.

One of the major issues that came up was the notion that certain nations would be given more of her support based on how much of their resources they could give her. She'd staunchly refused, instead preferring that those nations that received her help would based on the tactical and strategic needs of the day.

The only point she'd conceded was to the appointment of someone to oversee her deployments who would be tied to the United Nations to avoid potential international incidents or outrage. She'd managed to make a compromise however that whoever was appointed would be picked by the admirals already fighting the Abyssal War and that they must have a history of naval service in their country of origin, something Goto and the others had only been happy to accept.

Effectively, this meant that Kestrel was operating as a free agent tied only to which countries needed her assistance the most. In the meantime, while the finer points were hammered out, such as the selection of that overseer, Kestrel would remain at Yokosuka under the command of Admiral Goto until she was transferred to another nation.

"So." Kestrel began, breaking the silence as the group walked back to the Admiral's office. "That went surprisingly well."

"That it did." Mutsu agreed with a nod. "Though remind me to tell the cooks to bring you to the market the next time they need to get supplies. Pretty sure Ooyodo'd be happy to devote only half of the current food budget."

Kestrel shrugged. "So long as they give me a heads-up in advance and give me enough time to learn the language, we're good."

"Speaking of a "heads-up"." Goto said, drawing the carrier's attention as they reach the door to his office. He opened the door and was greeted by the sight of Nagato behind his desk scribbling away at various different forms.

"Sir!" Upon seeing her admiral enter, she stood up from the chair at attention.

"At ease Nagato. Thanks for covering for me." He said, thanking his secretary ship.

"Anytime sir." She answered, stepping out of the way to let Goto sit in his chair. The Admiral held back a sigh of relief as he finally sat down after standing for literal hours in the communications room. It was nice to be back behind the desk.

"Now Kestrel, seeing as you'll be under my command for the foreseeable future I'm in need of your skills for an upcoming mission." He said, leaning forward in his chair. Kestrel straightened to attention but said nothing. He pushed the intelligence file from his submarines to the edge of his desk, motioning for Kestrel to take it. "We've been tracking the fleet that made a run for Tokyo two days ago, the one you engaged. I'd like to hit them now before they have a chance to gain reinforcements, and with a convoy from America with relief supplies soon to be on the way I need that fleet taken care of.

Their carriers have still evaded our detection but from the intel reports I'm getting that fleet is still getting air cover. To take them on we'll need more carrier aircraft to match theirs, and with Akagi and Zuikaku still in the repair docks I'd rather not have to recall more carriers for the job, and Kaga won't be enough on her own.

Which is why for the time being, I'm hoping to transfer the air-wings of Akagi and Zuikaku over to you temporarily until the threat is dealt with or until they finish repairs." Goto finished. Kestrel nodded in understanding as she looked over the contents of the folder. Placing the folder back on his desk she once again stood at attention.

"How many planes am I receiving sir?" She asked.

"However many you can fit onboard." He answered. "Nagato can give you their current inventory of aircraft. Their pilots'll come with them and you'll have a day to work out any operational issues that could crop up. I can't give you any more than that."

"Understood sir. I'll get right on that." Kestrel said.

"You're dismissed." He stated simply. She gave him a proper American salute, turned on her heel and followed Nagato out of the room.

As the door closed behind them, Nagato and Kestrel fell in step with one another. The two were silent as they entered the Battleship's office, with Nagato quickly head around her desk and opening a filing cabinet to pull out two folders labelled _Akagi_ and _Zuikaku_ , quickly pulling out the forms that covered their current aircraft loadouts. "That's all the aircraft they have." She said handing the stack to Kestrel who took them without a word. She quickly began looking them over. "I'll admit, I'm curious to see how Second World War era fighters handle combat on the deck of a nuclear carrier."

"You're not the only one." Kestrel admitted with a chuckle, looking up from page she'd been skimming. "I honestly have no idea how I'm gonna make this work." She shrugged. "But orders are orders and I've made do with less." She paused, taking on a pensive look as she thought it over. "Actually I might have the opposite problem, since I might wind up operating more planes than I ever have before."

"You'll figure something out." Nagato reassured, sitting down at her own desk to finish up the paperwork she herself needed to get to.

"Sure as hell hope so." Kestrel added turning to leave with more reading material tucked under her arm. "I'm just glad I've got a day to work this all out." 

-[]-[]-[]-

"The Vulture took a direct hit!" A horrified voice yelled over the radio. "She's sinking!"

Kestrel could only watch in mute terror as the blast waves from the explosions above buffeted her flight deck. She could see her sister ship listing heavily to port, she could hear the pain groans of her hull as it tried to hold itself together.

Kestrel could only watch as scores of planes fell burning from the sky. She could still hear the screams of the pilots inside, the ejection seats jammed and unable to fire. They would perish with their planes, never to return home.

Kestrel waited in in cold apprehension for the next missile strike, the one that would no doubt be targeting her and send her to the bottom along with her sisters. She waited for the reports on the radio for the countdown to the next impact, entirely powerless to stop it.

But it never came.

There was no sigh of relief from Kestrel. Her eyes watched her sisters sank as their sailors jumped from their decks to escape certain doom. As she watched she saw a young woman standing on Vulture's listing deck, staring back at Kestrel with blood dripping down over her face from a gash on her forehead. Her eyes were pleading, watching the surviving carrier as vulture and Buzzard slipped beneath the waves.

 _Why you?_

Kestrel's eyes shot open, and she quickly sat up in bed. It took her a moment to realize that she was lying in her bed at Yokosuka.

 _"What the hell was that?"_ She thought to herself, placing her face in her hands. She looked out the window to her right and at the full moon sitting just over the bay. _Memories._ That was the memory of her sister's sinking. That was also the first time her air wing had suffered those kinds of casualties.

It wouldn't be the last time though…

Kestrel got up and headed for the door, grabbing the folder of Akagi and Zuikaku's air wings. She needed to get her mind off of her dream. At least this way she could get something productive done 

-[]-[]-[]-

Kaga pulled into port late at night, steaming alongside Aoba, Fubuki, Yudachi and Mutsuki. It had been a standard patrol operation to support a fishing operation in the north. It was a smaller fleet than what she was used to being a part of, but after the hit the Yokosuka fleet took a few days ago it wasn't surprising.

Stepping onto the pier she bade her farewells to the rest of the fleet. She made for the carrier division's barracks and to the showers they had there. Normally she'd be heading for the repair docks to use the showers there after good soak, however she hadn't taken any combat damage and her engines could wait until tomorrow for routine maintenance.

Upon entering the carrier barracks though, Kaga spied something peculiar. The new carrier-girl Kestrel, as Goto had told her this morning, was sitting on one of the couches with papers spread out on the coffee table in front of her. Evidently, she hadn't seen or heard Kaga come in as she continued reading over what was on those pages without even acknowledging the Japanese carrier's presence.

Kaga was willing to let Kestrel continue what she was doing in peace if it weren't for her muttering "how am I gonna make this work" under her breath. Kaga took a closer look at the pages in front of her and noticed the names _Akagi_ and _Zuikaku_ written at the top of the pages. Airwing inventory forms.

What was Kestrel doing with them?

"What seems to be the problem?" Kaga asked, causing Kestrel to sit up quickly in her seat. Kaga could see bags starting to form under her eyes. Kestrel hadn't slept well, or hadn't slept at all.

"Uh hey…" She replied, rubbing at her tired eyes with one hand. "Just trying to figure out how I'm gonna field both jets and prop planes and not completely mess it up."

"Jets and prop planes?"

"Yeah. Apparently I'm gonna be getting a few extra planes." Kestrel said, once again turning her attention to the pages in front of her.

"From who?"

"Akagi and Zuikaku, while they're getting repaired. Goto said it's temporary."

Kaga nodded, it made sense if what the Admiral had told was accurate. Kestrel was the closest thing they had to an American Nimitz class nuclear carrier. She had a lot more deck and hangar space than any WWII-era carrier, and as such would allow her to carry far more aircraft. In theory that made Kestrel the most powerful carriergirl currently afloat.

In _theory._

"I assume that it's not going as well as you'd hoped?" Kaga asked.

"Not even close." Kestrel sighed in agreement. "I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing."

Kaga actually had to supress the urge to smirk at that. A nuclear supercarrier nearly six decades newer not knowing how to launch Zeroes? That was definitely interesting.

Apparently Kestrel took Kaga's silence as a cue to continue talking. "I mean, I won't be able to launch them if my jets are on the deck, that much I know. The jet-wash will pitch them over the side if I mistime any of their movements on deck. Also can't launch and recover them at the same time without the use of my catapults, which I can't use because I'm pretty sure that'll just rip the wings off.

Not to mention I'll need to rig up a launching cradle to actually fit them to the rails since they don't have forward landing gear with a hookup. _And_ I'll need to offload fuel and spare parts for my jets to make room and service the new fighters on top of that…" Kestrel sighed a buried her face in her hands. "This is just turning into one massive headache…"

Kaga nodded in understanding. A lot of Kestrel's points made sense. A lot of Imperial Japanese aircraft were built with the minimum amount of weight in order to improve performance with underpowered engines. A jet with sufficient thrust would likely be able to knock one right off the deck. The Catapults would likely rip the wings off since they were never designed for that in mind, and using jet fuel instead of Avgas would likely foul up or damage the engines without proper modifications.

But one thing Kestrel said stuck in her mind. Why couldn't Kestrel launch and recover planes simultaneously? She had an angled flight deck after all! Kaga had read up on the various types of carriers that had seen service after the war. Mostly to see what her competition would be like if the Abyssal War dragged on long enough to see more modern shipgirls returning. One of these had been the American Nimitz-class. While Wikipedia didn't disclose all the information, she did know that they could average over 30 knots at flank. Coupled with her massive flight deck, she should have enough space to pull it off.

If anything, going into a strong headwind at flank could simultaneously launch fighters off the bow and angled runway with no problem!

But that was packing them in pretty tight on the flight deck, and that going to be asking for trouble in a combat situation. Sure Kestrel likely had an armored flight-deck but that wouldn't stop spilled fuel from being set ablaze from a bomb hit.

As she thought about it, Kaga had to admit that she didn't really see how to make it all work either. She didn't have an angle deck, and had never operated Jets before and had certainly never performed catapult launches. She'd been sunk before that was even considered.

"How long until you're next deployment?" Kaga asked.

"Goto's giving me a day to figure this out, then I'm being deployed." Kestrel answered, leaning back in her seat and letting out a sigh. "If I can be honest, I'd give up my catapults for just one more day to work on this."

Kaga turned and headed for the showers. "You'll figure it out."

Kestrel shrugged. "Maybe. We'll see."


	9. Interlude 1 : Prepare for War

She seethed as she looked upon the dozens of ships encircling her on the open sea. At first glance from a distance, it was an impressive collection of firepower. Two battleships and four more battlecruisers now protected the inner core of the fleet, consisting of herself and two standard carriers boxing her in to the port and starboard. Dozens more cruisers and destroyers formed loose rings around the center of the fleet as they steamed in circles upon the high seas.

However she saw that the fleet… _her fleet_ had been wounded, its assured victory snatched away at the last second. Snatched by that carrier, the one that had suddenly appeared in the middle of the battle that would have left those traitorous vessels broken before her. Its black planes had swept her own and those of her carriers from the skies before striking down her battlewagons.

The Armored Carrier Princess was fuming. Many of her battleships were lost, sent back to the depths and the remaining cruisers and destroyers were beaten and battered, some of whom were leaking oil and blood into the waves. Many of them needed constant resupply to repair what damage they'd sustained.

But she couldn't turn around and steam them home for better repairs. She would be admitting defeat if she did that, admitted her failure. She hadn't failed, not yet. Her fleet, battered and bloodied as it was, was still mostly intact, and those traitors would be fools to try and face it as it was.

And fools they were. She wasn't stupid, she knew exactly where she was. She'd chosen this place to wait for her enemies to come. They had to. Their transports and cargo ships had to pass through these waters, and with her and her fleet there, they couldn't send so much as a tugboat through without her ordering it sunk.

So she would wait and prepare for he foe's doomed and inevitable attack. When they did, she would hunt them down to the last, their penance would be a swift end and journey to the bottom. But if that carrier was fool enough to join them, the Princess would hunt her down personally.

She wouldn't sink her, oh no. No, she would ravage her flight deck, smash her boilers and snap her screws. She would make her watch as the traitors were hunted down and sent under, burning and bleeding. She would make her listen to their screams as he fleet tore them apart, make her listen to their pleading cries, begging for her to save them. Only when the fires had died and the traitors hit the ocean bottom would the Princess tear the carrier's hull open with her claws, draw out her final moments in agony as revenge for the ships she'd sunk.

The Princess ran her tongue over razer-sharp teeth. She could almost smell the burnt cordite and burning oil, could almost see that damned carrier bleeding in her grasp. Oh yes, she would pay alongside those filthy humans. She would pay for stealing away her victory.

All she had to do was wait…


	10. Chapter 9 : Mission Briefing

-[]-[ Chapter 9(?) : Mission Briefing ]-[]-

Kestrel collapsed onto her bed, utterly exhausted and without bothering to change out of her uniform. She'd just spent an entire day out on the water, launching and recovering planes, putting them through their paces, testing whatever flight tactics she could come up with. She'd only ever come in to top up her aviation fuel reserves and then went right back out.

The Hubert Supercarrier let out a tired groan into her pillow, hoping that it would somehow make her less tired. She groaned again when it didn't.

She lied like that for an hour before she rolled over onto her back and quickly realised she never shut off the light before flopping onto the bed. Ow, the eyes, they burn.

On the bright side, she'd managed to figure out how to get the whole thing to work with Akagi and Zuikaku's planes hitching a ride in her hangar decks. She didn't manage to fit them all in there, but packing 150 aircraft total was a pretty good number as far as she was concerned.

The _best_ part for her though was finding out that she could _totally_ launched old prop fighters off her bow and angled deck at the same time with a good headwind. Which was awesome. No other word for it. In practice though she wound up launching off the bow and recovering on the angled deck. As a bonus she'd quickly found out that her jets wouldn't accidentally knock the lighter Japanese fighters off the deck. Despite being lightweight they were still heavy enough that they stayed put when buffeted by jetwash.

The hard part though had been getting Akagi's and Zuikaku's pilots to concede to flying in four ship elements. They seemed to prefer to mass into larger groups rather than spread out into smaller groups to maximize air cover and be guided to the target by radar data. It had gotten to the point where she;d had to take the squadron leaders together and straight-up gave them the "my way or the highway" speech. They shaped up pretty quick after that. Evidently they cared more about getting job done than adhering to their old tactics.

Although it was a bit comical talking to a bunch of tiny people with oversized heads as they sat on her arms.

Did I say comical? I mean _friggin' weird._

She sighed. Time to get up and get changed for bed before she fell asleep. Or at the very least, get up to turn off the light so she could fall asleep. Pushing up from the bed, she headed over to the folded clothes that she was still borrowing from Kongou. First things first when she's back from deployment tomorrow, get her own clothes.

She's getting her own paycheck now, she could afford a shirt and pair of shorts!

After quickly changing and shutting off the light, she flopped back down onto the bed. A bed that was significantly bumpier and...argumentative than when she'd left it.

"OW! GET OFF! YOU'RE HEAVY!" The covers squeaked at her and she jumped up.

"What in the…?" Kestrel muttered to herself, feeling the bumpy mass she'd just collapsed on top of. Something was off here. She pulled back the covers and found herself staring at the four Akatsuki-class destroyers that had held her hostage for snuggles after her first night on base. "How'd you guys get in here?"

"The door." Hibiki replied. Kestrel glanced between the closed door and the four destroyers with a raised eyebrow. Her mind was already trying to piece together how they'd managed to sneak into her room and into her bed before she'd finished changing and without her noticing. She quickly decided to bury that somewhere in the darker depths of her brain and instead just get under the covers and sleep.

"Alright, move over." Kestrel said, easing herself under the covers before wrapping her arms around Inazuma and hugging her to her chest like a destroyer sized teddy bear. The other destroyers followed her lead and began to snuggle up to the larger carrier. "G'night kiddos."

"Good Night Kestrel-san!" They said in unison.

Kestrel was out shortly thereafter.

-[]-[]-[]-

Morning came far too soon for most at Yokosuka Naval base, what with everyone prepping for deployment the day prior. Very few had actually gotten the sleep they'd needed, after scurrying about the base making sure everything was in order. Goto was one of those people, and so he'd deigned to start his second cup of coffee early today, taking it with him inside the briefing room.

The shipgirls had already started filing in as he stood off to the side of the projector screen. They tended to come in small groups, mingling with other ships of their class. Destroyers with destroyers, cruisers with cruisers and so on.

Fubuki, Mutsuki and Yuudachi had parked themselves in the front row, talking animatedly in hushed tones. Aoba had apparently caught interest in what they were saying and was trying to jump into the conversation from the row behind, with mixed results.

Kaga, one of the two carriers on this mission, had been the first person to arrive and had waited outside the doors for Goto. The stoic carrier had taken one of the seats in the back corner.

Mutsu was busy teasing Nagato again in the back row if his secretary ships red face and Mutsu's grin was anything to go by. If he was reading Mutsu's gestures right, then she was talking about something that should _never_ _ **ever**_ be said in front of destroyers. At least the lewdmarines could probably handle it though. He wasn't sure how he felt about that...

Kongou, the only battleship of her class that was back to combat duty, had decided to bring her breakfast into the room. There she was, wolfing down authentic British cuisine faster than a speed-eating champion while somehow maintaining a somewhat dignified air as she ate. He had to fight the urge to roll his eyes when she winked at him.

Tenryuu was in the middle row, feet up on the table in front of her and trying desperately to look laid back. Goto had worked with the light cruiser long enough to spot how her eye kept nervously darting back to the door. The fact that DesDiv 6 wasn't with her probably had something to do with that. Goto himself found that a bit odd.

Just as his mind began to drift, wondering about why Desdiv 6 wasn't with their "mama", Kestrel managed to push the door open and squeeze through while somehow carrying four destroyers in her arms. While Kestrel herself looked awake, Desdiv 6, despite being in their uniforms, were still somewhat groggy.

"Sorry I'm late, sir." Kestrel said as the door closed behind her.

"Don't be Kestrel, you're actually a bit early." Goto responded, nodding to the carrier.

Kestrel returned the nod before heading over towards Tenryuu, plopping the four destroyers into chairs on either side of the cruiser and saying, "They're all yours" before grabbing a seat next to Kaga.

Goto checked his watch. 0750 hours and everyone was here. He could begin the briefing early. The faster he could deal with that Abyssal fleet hanging out in the middle of the ocean, the faster American convoys could make the trip to Japan.

He nodded to Ooyodo, who was manning the computer hooked up to the projector. The cruiser's hands deftly navigated the keyboard and soon the projector was booting up, lighting the large screen behind him with it's maker's logo.

Goto cleared his throat to grab the shipgirls' attention. "Ladies, we're a bit strapped for time at the moment so I'd like to keep this briefing short." A satellite image of the target zone appeared behind him on the screen, punctuated by recon photos taken by a submarine. On the whole, at least thirty different enemy vessels appeared on the screen and Goto could see some faces in the room grow a bit pale.

"What you see on the screen is what remains of the force that struck at Japan recently." He said. "It appears that they've received some reinforcements and we've spotted what's believed to be supply ships moving to and from the fleet.

Unfortunately, they've also placed themselves in the middle of a prime shipping route to America." The screen changed, backing out to show a stretch of ocean covering Indochina, the northern coast of Australia, Hawaii, Japan and the southern portion of Russia's East Coast. A large red area covering almost all of the southern Philippine Sea and stretching halfway out into the South Pacific marked the territory held by the Abyssals. A red ship icon located halfway between Hawaii and Japan marked the present location of the enemy fleet.

"At present, one of our major supply routes to America is blocked." Goto said. "Unfortunately for us, that fleet is showing no signs of moving and have been steaming in circles over the past two days."

"So, our job will be to get them to move?" Tenryuu asked.

"Yes." Goto replied. "Though it won't be just us." The screen changed again, this time changing to a roster list, showing the pictures of twelve young women and girls in four columns of three. A small American flag was located in the top left corner of the screen, the words "Task Force Halberd" emblazoned at the top.

"As of right now, we are outnumbered against the Abyssals in this fight, which is why the Americans will supply additional forces to help even the odds." He announced. "In this operation, we will be forming Task Force Rapier and moving out to engage and sink the Abyssal fleet. We know the Abyssals have air cover but have not yet located their carriers. Total number of carriers is projected at four or five and are likely part of a twenty-strong fleet."

"Which puts the total number of enemy vessels at around…fifty?" Kestrel suddenly piped up from the back, pausing from scribbling in a notebook she'd gotten from somewhere.

"Correct."

"So we're still outnumbered?"

"Correct."

Kestrel smirked. "And here I thought you'd try and go easy on me."

Goto's lips quirked up in a small grin. He quickly brought the room back on track. "Moving on then, Tenryuu, Akatsuki, Hibiki, Inazuma and Ikazuchi, you will be providing escort for Kaga and Kestrel. The remaining fleetgirls will be split into three groups headed by the three battleships as follows." The screen changed to show three groups with one of the battleships at the top of each, followed by cruisers and then destroyers. Goto simply didn't have enough time to name each ship in the group. "Any questions?"

The room was silent as the various ships took down whatever information they felt was pertinent. No hands went up, no one voiced any concerns. They knew what he expected of them. "You deploy at 0900 hours. Dismissed."

A chorus of "Hai" and one "Yes sir" met him before the shipgirls filed out of the room. It would take them a full day of sailing to get to the operation zone. After that they'd bee on their own, the American battlegroup the only backup they'd have.

Someone patted him on the shoulder, and her realized he'd turned solemn after everyone else had left. Ooyodo stood there, a reassuring smile on her face. "They'll be fine." Goto gave her a smile of his own as she turned and left.

"I hope you're right Ooyodo." 

-[]-[]-[]-

"Ho-lee _shit!_ "

Saratoga flinched reflexively, eyes darting from side to side, looking for any sign of USS Arizona. The Old Standard had deliberately targeted the younger (in both date of commissioning and date of return) USS Iowa as the object of her rebuttals. If Sara had to guess, it was because of the busty blonde battlewagon's choice in clothing and her already _legendary_ potty-mouth. Quite frankly, Saratoga did not want to be stuck in the middle of two's shouting matches. Not today, not when she was getting deployed.

"Could you keep it down, hun? What's got you so excited anyway?" Saratoga asked, cocking an eyebrow at the battleship.

"You mean _besides_ the fucking fact that I'm finally getting thrown into the fight?" Iowa retorted, grinning from ear to ear. "It's that there's a fucking supercarrier that's gonna be there!"

"Uh…" Saratoga hooked her thumb out the window towards the steel-hull form of the Ford-class carrier USS John F. Kennedy CVN-79. The poor ship was tied up in port now, her flight decks and hangars almost completely empty. Sara couldn't help be feel a pang of sympathy for the poor girl, a carrier with no planes wasn't worth her steel. It must hurt to be stuck like that…

Iowa brought her hand to her forehead. "Goddammit Sara, you know what I fucking meant." Iowa grumbled. "But seriously though, how weird is it that there's a Supercarrier that isn't one of ours?"

"Great Britain has the Queen Elizabeth Class." Sara paused. "Sorry, 'had'." She recalled reading news reports over the sinking of both those ships. It had been long before she'd returned and had been a massive blow to the Royal Navy.

"Okay, okay, so I'm ignorant or whatever. But seriously, alternate world carrier? How fucking cool is that?!" Iowa said excitedly, giving a little skip as she and Saratoga walked down the hall towards the barracks. The battleship brought a finger to her lips, taking on a curious look. "I wonder what she's like? Think she's nice?"

"I suppose we'll find out, won't we?" Sara replied. "Just remember that we're there to sink Abyssals, not to socialize."

" _Yes mooooom!"_ Iowa groaned. "Look I gotta grab something from my room, 'kay? I'll meet you at the docks in five." She added, splitting off from the fleet carrier.

"Don't be late!"

"Yeah yeah! Keep your fuckin' panties on I'll be there!" Iowa called over her shoulder before rounding the corner. Saratoga smiled and shook her head. Working with the Japs now? She wondered how that was going to go.


	11. Chapter 10: Western Pacific Part 1

Kaga pulled the bowstring back, breathing inwards as her arm came back. She sighted up an imaginary target ahead, adjusting her aim towards it as she steamed into the wind. Breathing out she released the arrow, the bow rotating in her hand as the shot flew true. Above the horizon the arrow split into a flight of six A6M5 Zeros, which then climbed into the air to assume a close air patrol pattern in the air above.

A perfect launch, one might even call that textbook. It was normal operations for Kaga. She didn't feel pride from a perfect launch. She'd made too many in her career, both as a steel-hull and after she'd returned.

Glancing to her left, she spotted Kestrel, a new flight of Zero's launching off her angled deck. Her bow deck was presently occupied by the four, much larger, F-14s that comprised the supercarrier's own air group. One of them was locked into one of her catapults, white steam billowing up around the plane's landing gear.

Kestrel raised the forward deck catapult and aimed at the horizon. A sudden _whoosh_ and the jet rocketed off the deck. It began to fall, it's nose pitching upward as the pilot increased thrust, and it began to climb into the air. Despite launching earlier, the Zeros were left in the Tomcat's dust. They just couldn't compete with the jet's raw power.

Having to manage the aircraft of two carriers plus her own, it was no wonder why Kestrel's brow was knit into a look of stern concentration. Or maybe that was the aircraft she'd ranged out to try and find the enemy force. If Kaga's own experiences held true for a carrier of Kestrel's size, it was probably a mix of both.

" _Kaga, Kestrel, have you found any sign of the enemy?"_ Nagato's voice suddenly popped up on the radio.

"Negative, Nagato-san." Kaga reported curtly.

"Nothing but a pod of whales to the southeast." Kestrel reported. "We're still looking. Any word from our American friends?"

" _They're reporting back the same thing. No sign of the enemy yet."_ Nagato reported back.

"Well, we're all still a few miles out from the enemy's last known position." Kestrel pointed out. "We'll keep searching and report in if we find anything."

" _Acknowledged Kestrel-san, Nagato out."_

Silence once again reigned over the channel as the carrier fleet continued to steam behind the positions of the three battleship divisions. Tenryuu sailed ahead of the formation, DesDiv 6 holding positions to the sides and behind the division.

Another whooshing noise from Kestrel and another of the F-14s launched off her deck. Once the fighter was up safely, Kestrel quickly placed a new fighter on the catapult as faeries scrambled around it in their multicolored vests, preparing the fighter for launch.

One of Kaga's own CAP flights was low on fuel, and she raised her flight deck to allow them to land. The Zeros came in and performed textbook landings, her elevator quickly bringing the aircraft down into the hangar and clearing the way for her to launch another wing of CAP fighters.

She pulled an arrow from her quiver, notching it and pulled the bowstring back as she breathed in. Exhaling she loosed the arrow, and another flight of Zeros climbed up into the sky to continue their patrols.

"Man…" Tenryuu suddenly said from the front. "Where are the Abyssals? We should've seen something from them by now!"

"It doesn't matter." Kage stated. "They will be found eventually, we must simply concentrate on performing to the best of our ability."

"Tch." Tenryuu turned back to the sea in front of her.

"Hate to be _that_ person here, but I gotta agree with Tenryuu on this one." Kestrel added. Kaga turned to the Supercarrier, who only shrugged. "I mean we've been sending out recon flights the whole time we've been here, and my radar and that of my fighters haven't even seen any enemy recon flights. We should be well within their range, and yet we've seen nothing."

"Then the enemy carriers are foolish." Kaga replied.

"Maybe." Kestrel conceded. "But I'd bet my money on them having another way to track us."

"Submarines?" Tenryuu wagered.

Kaga barely missed the almost imperceptible shiver that went up Kestrel's spine. "Yeah, probably subs." The supercarrier agreed.

Tenryuu cleared her throat. "Alright girls! Listen up!" Tenrryu addressed Desdiv 6. "We might have subs in the water! I want your eyes scanning the surface for any sign of those fish! You see anything you say so, understood?"

A chorus of "Hai" rose up from the four little destroyers.

"I'll have my radar techs watching the skies." Kestrel added. "If there are any planes inbound to our position, I'll let you know. Now I gotta call this in to the rest of the groups."

Kaga, was still skeptical of the idea of Subs being used for reconnaissance, her CAP would have spotted them. Actually, the more she thought about it, her CAP was watching the skies, not the seas, and her Recon flights were too far out.

She took a quick scan of the ocean around her before once again focussing on her flight groups. She had her duties to perform and the destroyers had theirs. She heard the sound of a helicopter spooling up and watched as a white helicopter lifted off of Kestrel's deck.

Right, the supercarrier was equipped for some anti-submarine duties. Something Kaga herself wasn't.

Hopefully the carrier was wrong about the subs.

-[]-[]-[]-

The Princess grinned as the reports from her fleet came in. The enemy, as she'd predicted, had come to finish off her fleet. And they had brought some new faces with them from across the sea. The submarines she'd recruited for her fleet were proving to be very beneficial to her plan. Despite its size, her fleet was undetected, while she was able to monitor her enemies' positions with ease. All she had to do was reign in her submarines until she had to spring her trap.

But there was a problem with her strategy. She hadn't fully counted on the presence of the new faces, the Americans. And they were getting uncomfortably close to her position. If they spotted her fleet, no doubt they would report her position to the other, much larger enemy fleet.

But they also provided an opportunity. Their fleet was small, and their members new and inexperienced. They were weak, and they would be easy prey.

And they would be the bait for her trap.

The Princess looked to one of her carriers. _"Go, hunt the new faces."_ The Wo-class nodded, before turning away from the rest of the fleet, a group of cruisers and destroyers leaving with her. The Princess and remaining carrier began to ready their fighters for the coming battle. She was confident of her plan, and she could almost taste the bloody oil of her foes on her tongue. She would carry this day, and she would make them pay for damaging her fleet and sinking her ships.

The only thing she didn't know, is if that carrier was with them.

-[]-[]-[]-

Iowa steamed alongside Saratoga, her radar searching the seas and skies for anything resembling an enemy contact. The buxom blonde battleship had been cutting a path through the open sea for the past nine hours now, and so far she and her fellow Americans hadn't seen anything. Neither had the Japanese.

Her legs were sore, her fingers were twitchy and her main guns itched. She needed something to shoot at. All this waiting was driving her up the wall.

"For fuck's sake! Just show up already!" She grumbled aloud.

"Swear!" USS Eldridge shouted, pointing directly at the much bigger battleship and grinning from ear-to-ear. "You swore!" She repeated, still grinning and still pointing.

Holy shit Iowa didn't even know she was in that group. She didn't even say a word until now.

"Okay, where in the fuck did you come from?" She asked with a confused blink.

"Swear!"

"Yeah I know I fucking did! So what?"

"Swear!"

"Would you stop fucking saying that?"

"Eldridge, don't bait Iowa." Saratoga ordered with a resigned sigh. The destroyer escort in question only giggled, the three destroyers and one DE of the venerable Taffy 3 joining in. "Let's all stay focused, we don't know when the enemy will-."

"Contact! Enemy air strike coming in on our twelve!" USS Alaska reported from the front of the battlegroup, cutting off Sara. The other radar equipped ships in the fleet had picked them up by the time Alaska had finished speaking. Anti-air and dual-purpose guns were readied across the battlegroup, and radar-equipped ships relayed information to those that weren't part of the Radar Master Race.

"Finally…" Iowa muttered, cracking her knuckles and prepping her anti-air batteries. Next to her, Saratoga slammed a magazine filled with Wildcat fighters into her launch deck. A series of sharp cracks, sounded above the shouts of the American shipgirls as the standard carrier launched more fighters to intercept. The fleet was ready, those that could paying careful attention to their radar, watching the enemy aircraft slowly approach.

" _Kestrel to Task Force Halberd."_

"This is Saratoga, go ahead." The carrier began. "We've made contact with the enemy. Preparing to engage."

" _Understood Saratoga, be advised that we suspect they might have subs in the water."_ Kestrel stated.

Iowa's head snapped to stare at Saratoga, eyes wide. "They got what now?!"

"Saratoga to Kestrel, how do you figure that?" The carrier asked, ignoring the battleship's outburst.

There was a pause on the other end of the line. _"Call it a hunch, Saratoga. I think they're using them to track our movements."_

Saratoga hummed in thought. It made a bit of sense actually. Why were they now staring at an incoming airstrike when they hadn't seen any sign of them until now? "Roger that Kestrel, we'll keep an eye out if we can. Saratoga out."

Iowa stared off towards the direction of the incoming airstrike. Instead of flexing and cracking her hands in anticipation of the fight ahead, she was fidgeting slightly as she sailed forward. Saratoga couldn't help but feel a bit of a pang of sympathy for the battlewagon. The Iowa's paid for their rapid construction with somewhat compromised torpedo protection, and a submarine lurking out there somewhere presented a clear and potential threat to her.

"You know we have destroyers and DE's around." Sara said softly. Iowa turned her head towards the standard carrier. The expression on her face wasn't so much fear as it was nervousness. "They're trained to deal with subs."

"Yeah." Iowa nodded. "Yeah they are."

"Just focus on the air for now." Sara said, just as her fighters began to close with the enemy. "Some of them are gonna get through, but I'll try and thin the herd a bit." Saratoga's planes closed to gun range, opening fire on the black triangular fighters in a squadron sized game of chicken. The two formations crossed, five enemy planes going down to Sara's four.

Her fighters circled around to make another pass, and were met by the enemy escort fighters breaking away to engage them, letting the bombers to continue on momentarily unopposed. With her fighters already set up for their attack run, Sara's group opened up the enemy formation, claiming another three kills before the skies turned to chaos.

More than anything else, Saratoga was reminded of the fact that Abyssals preferred quantity over quality, as her Wildcats were more than a match for the enemy flyers. Combined with tactics he pilots employed during the Pacific War against the Zero, for every one of her planes was shot down by the enemy, she could boast three kills.

Still she'd be dealing with this for a while if the numbers of planes the Abyssals had sent at them was anything to go by.

"Incoming!" USS Atlanta called out, bringing Saratoga out of her thoughts. Looking skyward, the carrier spotted the small dots that denoted enemy fighters.

"Alright girls!" Iowa bellowed, rolling her shoulders, the battleships powerful, yet usually overlooked, muscles rippling across her back. "We got some fucking bitches who don't know who their messing with! Let's give them a taste of good ol' fuckin' freedom!"

"OOH-RAH!" The battlegroup hollered as split second before the enemy fighters crossed into the effective range of their 5"/38's. The American battlegroup erupted, flinging lead at the enemy fighters, much of it with radar-guided precision. The enemy planes broke formation to try and break up the volume of fire that was coming at them.

Iowa took charge here, barking orders and directing shipgirls towards certain formations of enemy planes. The Abyssals dropped like flies, burning and shattered husks of fighters falling towards the sea. Iowa herself was best described as a volcano of American steel and cordite smoke as her dual-purpose guns and anti air batteries flung red-hot lead skyward.

But there were still so many enemy planes in the air, and there was no doubt in anyone's mind that there would be some that got through. Such as one bomber with a torpedo slung under it's centerline bore down on the Destroyer USS Heermann. It was alone, it's friends having been shot down long before, and quickly fell to anti-aircraft fire.

But not before it released its payload, the torpedo plunging into the water and powering towards the destroyer. Heermann saw the torpedo drop, and wheeled around to avoid the attack, simultaneously calling out the fact that there was a torpedo in the water heading for the rest of the fleet. None of the other ships were hit.

As the battle raged, USS Alaska picked something up on her Radar. Surface contacts, about sixteen of them, steaming directly for the American battlegroup, the biggest ones looked to be about the size of Treaty Cruisers. With the speed they were approaching, they'd be on top of Task Force Halberd before the enemy airstrike was over.

Alaska's heart sank into her stomach. Having to deal with an enemy surface fleet and an airstrike at the same time? "Uh, girls?! I think we have a problem!"

-[]-[]-[]-

 _Stantsii deystviy!*_

Her eyes fluttered open, gazing up at the clear sky. She felt the water lapping at her skin, seeping through clothes she'd never worn and hugging limbs she'd never had. Her side and face still ached, a memory of her final moments. A memory of the pain.

To anyone else, such things would have given her pause. But she was trained. She was prepared for the strange and surreal. Such was the mandate of the Yuktobanian Navy.

She sat up, strangely not sinking into deeper into the water but sitting atop it. She got to her feet and took in her surroundings as waves cashed against her shins. She was upon the open sea, a few scattered fluffy clouds and the sun high in the sky the only things to break up the continuous blue of her surroundings.

She took a moment to take in her new appearance. Instead of a ship, she was now inhabiting the body of a fourteen or fifteen-year-old girl, her skin was fair and her blonde hair long and tied back in a loose messy ponytail. She wore a white tank top under a black short-sleeved cropped jacket, the antlers of the Yuktobanian Republics on her left shoulder and the flag on her left. She wore a matching pair of shorts with red and yellow lines tracing around the bottoms. Her shoes were standard navy dress.

But she also noticed something else. She still had her weapons, scaled down to fit her new form. On right forearm was the four tube launcher for her anti-sub/surface-to-surface missiles. On her left were the two turrets of her twin-mounted 76mm naval cannons, one on her shoulder, the other mounted to her wrist. Clamped to her thighs were the two four-tube torpedo launchers, and on her back rested the two launchers for her short-range SAMs.

She glanced around at her surrounding once more, this time opening up her radar suite, reaching out further than her eyes could allow. She was surprised when her vision was overcome with a collection of symbols as her radar returns came in. Momentarily stunned, she reached up to rub her eyes and her hands pressed up against something hard.

Glasses, she had glasses. A pair of thin-framed glasses sat on her nose, acting like a heads-up display. In the bottom right corner of her vision she saw an ammunition counter for her weapons. On the left-hand side saw an indicator for speed and engine setting, and on the top she saw a compass readout which showed she was staring to the southeast.

She looked to the left and spotted surface unknown surface contacts, about twelve, denoted with a yellow circle with an X through it. To her systems, that meant Neutral, non-combatants. Likely because there was no other way to classify them on her HUD right now. But above and around them, swarmed dozens of aircraft, and her systems screamed enemy when she looked at them, containing them in green boxes. More enemy surface vessels were heading for them, the green circles tracking their movements.

She wanted to intervene, do something, if only to sink and shoot down what her systems considered enemies. But she was only one ship! What could she possibly do? Her sinking had proved that a lonely ship is as good as dead.

Suddenly a voice came over her comms on a secure channel. Female and speaking in fluent Yuktobanian. "This is Destroyer Gumrak of the Glorious Yuktobainan Navy! Enemy Forces have been sighted! To any Yuktobanian vessels in the area, I am transmitting coordinates to regroup! We must defeat the enemy for the glory of our fleet! Respond if you hear this message!"

More voices cut in over the channel. "This is Destroyer Chuda. I'm with you Gumrak!"

"Destroyer Dub. On my way!"

"Destroyer Bystry! All engines ahead flank!"

"Corvette Budusheye! Moving to support!"

She smiled momentarily. She wasn't alone, not entirely. She had a chance now. She cleared her throat and opened a channel. "This is the Frigate Pitmnik! I'm moving to the rendezvous point and preparing weapons! For the glory of the Yuktobanian Navy!"


	12. Chapter 11 : Western Pacific Part 2

Upon making visual contact with the other five members of the Yuktobanian Navy, Pitomnik threw her arm up an exaggerated wave. Upon seeing the five of them wave back, she stepped on the proverbial gas, moving up to 28 knots and closing the distance with the friendly destroyers and corvette.

Taking a quick scan to the left, Pitomnik saw the various hostile contacts steaming along towards the unknown contacts. The enemy didn't seem to know they were there, or if they knew they didn't react. Which was perplexing to say the least. Pitomnik and the rest of the friendly fleet were well within detection range for surface search radar. They hadn't seen any anti-ship missiles launched in their direction yet, and there had been no aircraft diverted to scout the area.

Something wasn't right here…

The rest of the Yuktobanian fleet turned slightly to starboard as they approached her, angling towards the enemy vessels. Pitomnik turned onto an intercept course, forming up with the fleet and slotting in next to a friendly destroyer with a mane of wild brown hair, her eyes blazing with excitement and her chest puff out with pride for the fleet.

Missile Destroyer Gumrak, gave Pitomnik a wide toothy grin as the Frigate slotted into the fleet along the port side. "Glad you could join us Pitomnik!"

"Glad to be here." Pitomnik said smiling. "Hopefully this time as a friend."

A collective wince passed through the fleet. "That was a mistake and we know it." Corvette Budusheye stated levelly. She was a small thing, with black hair done into two braids that went down to her lower back, whipping away in the ocean winds. "You are a comrade of the Yuktobanian Navy, Pitomnik. No one here will touch you."

Speak for yourself!" Dub stated, lightly elbowing Pitomnik in the arm. The destroyers rusty-red hair billowing in the wind, loose strands caught in her face. Dub didn't seem to mind her own hair getting in her eyes. She didn't even react. "We're comrade yes?! That means we don't need to avoid her!"

"Will you all pipe down?" Bystry grumbled from the starboard side of the fleet. "All the time you spend bickering gives the enemy time to attack!" The short-haired and serious-looking destroyer tilted her head to port, cracking her neck.

"Who do you think the enemy is?" Chuda asked meekly from behind the collar of her oversized coat. The destroyer was the only one who wasn't wearing a variation of the Yuktobanian service uniform, instead opting for a light winter coat with a skirt-stocking combo. It was still in Yuktobanian colors however, and still had the proper markings. She even had her pennant number on the bottom of her coat, 237.

"Does it matter?" Dub said excitedly. "They're enemies! They must be sunk!"

"No, it does matter." Bystry stated. "Are they Oseans or someone else? We made peace with Osea, it would feel wrong to be at war again."

Dub shrugged. "A lot can change. We don't know how long it's been since we…" She trailed off, her expression suddenly becoming dour. A change that was mirrored by the other four vessels in the fleet.

There was a story there, Pitomnik was sure of that, one she wasn't sure she wanted to find out. But that could wait. There were more pressing matters that needed her attention.

"Still, it would feel wrong." Bystry reiterated.

"So then what do we do?" Chuda asked. "Sit here and watch while doing nothing?"

"Of course not!" Gumrak all but shouted. "We are ships of the Glorious Yuktbanian Navy! We do not sit on the sidelines like cowards! We fight!"

"But what if-!"

"They're not Oseans." Pitomnik stated, cutting off Bystry. The others all looked to her, eyes asked her to elaborate. "Think about it… we're well within their radar if we can see them, but have seen the enemy try and engage us? No. Have they diverted aircraft to attack us? No." She paused. "How often would Osean's do that?"

"Never." Chuda stated.

"Could be a trap." Budusheye ventured.

"Then we spring the trap and fight our way out of it." Gumrak stated, clearly done talking. "Bystry, Chuda, Dub, you're with me. We target the closest ships and hit them with long range missiles. Sync targeting data!"

"Roger, syncing."

"Syncing."

"Syncing!"

"What about the unknown vessels?" Pitomnik asked, watching as they and the enemy closed the distance. From the looks of things, they were engaged in close range surface action with the enemies. "What do we do with them?"

Gumrak smiled. "Then let them know that we'll have missiles on the way to help them out."

"Also have them identify themselves." Chuda added. "Y'know, so we know if we should shoot at them too or not."

Pitomnik sighed. Never a dull moment in the Yuktobanian Navy.

Gumrak began counting down, after she and the other destroyers got solid locks with their missiles. "Three! Two!..."

"URRAH!" They all shouted at once, their missiles burning away as their engines roared. The missiles streaked off towards the enemy contacts, quickly attaining their maximum speed of Mach 3.

Those enemies were in for one heck of bad day.

-[]-[]-[]-

"KILL _ME_ YOU FUCKS!" Iowa roared in time with her guns. A Chi-class took the shots on the nose, the Mark-8s tearing her bow apart. The Abyssal screamed in agony and rage and unleashed her own salvo of six-inch cannon shells at the American battlewagon.

Her attention focused on Iowa, she completely missed the torpedoes Heerman had just tossed into the water at close range. The spread slammed into the enemy cruiser, who once again shrieked in pain before summarily face-planting into the sea right in front of Iowa. The battleship didn't even slow down, instead opting to run over the Chi-class to finish her off.

She made a pretty good speed bump.

Iowa, with the immediate threat on the open sea dealt with, turned her attention back to the sky. Abyssal multirole fighters mixed it up with Wildcats from Saratoga, tracers from both 50-cals and 20mm cannons filled the airspace between them.

Wildcats made mince-meat out of the abyssal planes and even more went down to Anti-Air cannons, but there were just so many of the things that they couldn't really make an effective dent in their numbers to really matter.

Iowa watched as three torpedo bombers dropped their payloads off to Eldridge's port side. The Battleship was about to shout a warning to the little DE, but Eldridge wheeled around to the left to dodge the spread.

Up towards the front, Alaska was duking it out with two Ri-class heavies, trading twelve-inch shells for salvos of 8-inchers in return. Alaska turned hard starboard, unlimbering her rear turret at one of the Ri-class. Twelve-inch shells tore into the Heavy Cruiser, blowing off one of her forward turrets.

Then an enemy Ni-class destroyer unleashed a spread of torpedoes at the now broadside-on American Large Cruiser. "ALASKA!" Iowa shouted in warning. Alaska saw the fish far too late to do anything about it as two slammed into her portside.

Alaska didn't scream, instead biting down on her lip as pain washed over her. She'd been hit hard and was now listing slightly to port, making it harder to aim her guns, but she was still afloat and could still fight.

A trio of 16-inch high-explosive shells form Iowa quickly deleted the Ni-class from existence, the enemy destroyer going up in a green-tinged fireball. Alaska fired off another salvo at the Ri-class she was targeting and watched as the Abyssal crashed into the water, bleeding profusely and missing her left arm.

Alaska looked to her starboard side and saw USS Atlanta hosing down the other Ri-class with 5-inch shells. The Ri-was taking such a huge volume of fire that she was now a blazing inferno as Atlanta's high-explosive shells started to set her deck ablaze. The American light cruiser decided to punctuate that by throwing a spread of four torpedoes in the water.

The Ri fought back, unleashing a salvo that tore into Atlanta and knocked out two of her rear turrets, one getting jammed in place and the other being ripped right off its mount. Three of Atlanta's fish hit the enemy heavy, and despite inflicting some pretty serious damage the Ri-class remained afloat.

Upon hearing splashing from the left, Alaska spun around to see the Ri-class she thought she'd just killed stand back up and point its remaining guns at her, all the while its stump of an arm leaked black ichor into the sea.

"Oh these things just won't die!" Atlanta growled, twirling two of her six remaining undamaged revolvers.

"Guys! We got more coming in! Starboard side!" Sammy B hollered, pointing in the direction of six enemy ships. A Chi-class and two Tsu-class cruisers, and three Ni-class destroyers were wheeling around to flank the American task force.

"This really isn't going well." Iowa huffed, her 5-inch guns blazing away at enemy fighters.

"Gee ya think?!" Hoel shouted.

Iowa didn't see fit to dignify that little bout of insubordination with a response, instead pointing her main battery at the enemy group. They were just a bit outside her weapons range, but they were getting closer. Iowa just had to take them out before they got into torpedo range.

Then Hoel and Johnston got a bit too zealous, turning around and heading into the enemy formation. Their Taffy-3 was showing, and it couldn't have reared its ugly head at a worse time. Amid shouts for them to come back, Iowa cursed under her breath and opened up with a broadside she hoped would make the enemy think twice before attacking the two destroyers steaming right for them.

It didn't.

The three Abyssal cruiser began to point their guns at the approaching Americans, the Chi-class and the destroyers prepping their torpedoes for launch. Hoel and Johnston just replied with their own battlecry and continued their charge.

Then she saw the Chi-class turn around to look in the other direction a split second before a massive, cylindrical object slammed into it and exploded. In a fraction of a second the Chi-class' head and part of its torso were simply gone. Another destroyer and both of the Tsu-class cruisers were also hit, though one of the cruisers somehow managed to survive.

Hoel and Johnston stopped, their eyes wide at the carnage in front of them. The surviving Abyssals were looking around frantically, trying to find the source of the attack. The two Americans looked to each other, shared a confused glance, and then turned their attention back to the burning and sinking wrecks of three Abyssals.

Iowa meanwhile, just stood there, mouth agape and trembling. She knew what those were. She'd seen the footage of what they could do to a ship. She had grown to fear the specter of it during her service against the Reds.

But there was no way… it couldn't be…

Saratoga watched as Iowa just stopped, eyes locked onto the sinking wrecks of Abyssals in fear. The normally boisterous battleship uncharacteristically silent. Somewhat confident that her fighters and the other girls' AA fire could hold off the Abyssal fliers, the standard carrier quickly steamed up to Iowa and gave her arm a good shake.

"Iowa? Iowa are you okay?" Sara asked. Iowa didn't respond, continuing to stare off into the distance. "Iowa, speak to me! What's going on?!"

Without taking her eyes off the spot where the Abyssals had been, Iowa replied. "Moskits…those were Moskits…"

-[]-[]-[]-

Kestrel had her fingers crossed as she watched Razgriz team fly at full afterburner towards Task Force Halberd. Ever since Saratoga had called in with a request for backup, Kestrel had directed her jets to provide whatever support she could to the Americans. Problem was, even with their speed, the distances between the two groups was large enough that the Abyssals had closed to gun range and were duking it out with friendly shipgirls.

So concentrated was she that when Saratoga's voice spoke over the radio, Kestrel jumped slightly in surprise. _"Saratoga to Task Force Rapier."_

Kestrel took a breath to calm herself down. "This is Kestrel, what is it?"

" _We've got a situation down here."_ Saratoga stated. _"Three Abyssals just got taken out by an unknown party."_

Kaga turned to Kestrel. "Could it have been Razgriz?"

Kestrel shook her head. "They're still twenty seconds out, and I've armed them for air-to-air engagements. It couldn't have been them."

" _Especially since Iowa says they got taken out by Moskit missiles."_ Saratoga added.

"Moskits?" Inazuma asked no one in particular.

"Russian anti-ship missiles, developed in the 1980's." Hibiki helpfully supplied.

Ikazuchi just looked at her. "How come you know that? You were sunk in the fifties!"

Hibiki just pointed to herself and said: "Russophile."

Kaga exchanged a glance with Tenryuu who just shrugged. "Don't look at me, I didn't know what a Moskit was until now either."

"Saratoga, you said they used Moskits? Think it could be Abyssals?" Kestrel asked.

" _Not likely, unless there's two factions of Abyssals and they're fighting each other."_ The carrier replied. _"Still, without knowing who the culprits were, we can't rule anything out."_

Kestrel hummed, wondering if she should divert Razgriz team to go check it out, until her fighters began to pick out some surface contacts to the north on their Radar. Six ships, steaming at flank towards Task Force Halberd. "Sara, I think I might be seeing the culprits. They're north of you and closing quick. Don't know if they're hostile."

" _Right. We'll keep an eye out for any more of their surprises. Meanwhile we can use some fighter cover."_

Kestrel smirked. "Just crossed into weapons range now."

-[]-[]-[]-

"We got them!" Gumrak shouted, pumping a fist in the air.

"Yes but what about the trap?" Chuda wondered.

"There is no trap." Bystry corrected. "We must have somehow caught them unawares."

"Then we press the assault!" Gumrak said, cracking her knuckles. "Fellow destroyers! Select new targets and fire on my command!"

"Hey! I'm in weapons range too you know!" Budusheye said angrily, her face flushing red.

"Right. Pitomnik, you want to join in?" Gumrak asked.

Pitomnik shook her head. "No. I'm still outside of my effective weapons range."

Gumrak shrugged, grin still on her face. "Fair enough. Everyone else, pick your targets!" Soon enough, five more missiles streaked away from the Yuktobanian vessels. Pitomnik watched as the missiles streaked in, slamming into more targets, one of them striking the enemy ship that had survived the first salvo. The Moskits hit far earlier than Budusheye's "Harpoonski" missile, but two more ships were sent to the bottom. One of the Moskits somehow missed, going long and splashing harmlessly into the water. Budusheye succeeded in striking a vessel, but didn't sink it.

"Man, those Corvettes* sure don't last long!" Dub said, putting her hand up to shield her eyes.

"You'd think they'd use their CIWS. They shouldn't be taking nearly this much damage on the second wave, even against Moskits." Bystry pointed out.

"Yeah that's kinda weird." Dub agreed.

"Maybe their CIWS is on the fritz?" Budusheye ventured.

Pitomnik shook her head. "Across all their ships? Not likely. Something weird is going on here."

"Hey, guys?" Chuda interrupted. "You maybe think we should contact those unknown ships to let them know we aren't shooting at them? They're kind of in the middle of all those enemies we've been shooting at…"

And uncomfortable silence descended over the Yuktobanian fleet. Pitomnik inwardly winced, she should've thought of that. Now the unknowns were probably panicking being near the receiving end of a missile-strike. This could be a problem…

"Soooooo…" Gumrak began. "How do we salvage this and not completely fuck it up again?"

Pitomnik sighed. "We can try raising them on the radio and saying: Hey! Sorry we just shot missiles at you but it wasn't you we were trying to hit! Just tells us who you are and we should be okay."

Dub shrugged. "Works for me!"

Bystry let out a sigh and shook her head slowly. "You're all a bunch of complete idiots…"

"I didn't see _you_ think up giving them a heads up!" Gumrak retorted.

"To be fair…"

Pitomnik tuned out the conversation as something else pinged her radar. Four blue squares appeared in the sky, streaking towards the skies above the raging battles. And she got an actual IFF return on them. F-14As, Osean, and had the ID of RZGZ 1-through-4. "Hey guys? You seeing what I'm seeing?" She asked, pointing the direction of the four fighters.

The other ships abandoned their conversation and focused their attention on the new aircraft. Their reactions were pretty much immediate, eyes widening and in the case of Dub, jaws dropping.

"No friggin' way…" Gumrak breathed.

-[]-[]-[]-

Kestrel…didn't honestly know what she was looking at. Or rather, what her planes were looking at. Six ships in tight formation heading right for Task Force Halberd. Instead of sending her jets right at the enemy fliers, she instead decided to have them loop around closer to the unknown ships before diving into the fight. Just so she could get a better look at them.

As they pulled closer, she got a better view of the ships. Four destroyers, a frigate, and a corvette and all of them packing missiles. They'd manifested as shipgirls, which mean they were returnees, and from the colors they were flying, they were Yuktobanian.

"I know those ships…" Kestrel gasped in disbelief. There was no way those six were back!

"Kestrel-san, what is it?" Kaga asked. The others in the fleet turned to look at the two carriers, wondering just what was going on.

"I know those ships!" Kestrel practically squealed in excitement before switching to her radio. "Saratoga, I know who's firing the Moskits! They're approaching your position and their friendly, don't-."

" _THEY'RE FLINGING MOSKITS AT US! HOW IN THE FUCK ARE THEY FRIENDLY?!"_ Iowa's panicked shrieks cut her off, causing everyone in the carrier group to wince in pain.

"Owwwwwww….!" Inazuma groaned, covering her ears to try and block out the noise.

"Geez Iowa, tell us how you really feel why dontcha?" Tenryuu grumbled, picking at her ear to try and stop it from ringing so much.

" _Iowa, please just calm down."_ Saratoga cut in over the radio. _"They haven't shot at us yet, and the last thing we need is more enemies to fight. Kestrel, you said they're friendly."_

"Yeah, I fought beside them before. They're friendly." Kestrel replied. "If you make contact six Yuktobanian ships, let them know you're working with me alright? I'm just outside of radio range with them right now."

Tenryuu raised an eyebrow at the carrier. She was practically _vibrating_ in excitement.

" _Right Kestrel, we'll try making contact."_ Sara responded.

" _We will?!"_ Iowa's voice cracked.

" _Yes. We will."_

" _Ah fuck my life…"_


End file.
